The math of how atomic nuclei stay together is surprisingly beautiful | Full movie #SoME2

JJJreact

How does the nucleus of an atom stay together?

Animations and editing by Abhigyan Hazarika

Script and narration by Fernando Franco Félix

This is our submission to the Summer of Math Exposition:

Project github:

Original post for the project:

Learn more about spin:

Music by Vincent Rubinetti
Download the music on Bandcamp:
Stream the music on Spotify:

Bibliography:

Introduction to Particle Physics by David J. Griffiths

Lie Algebras in Particle Physics by Howard Georgi

Constructing Quarks by Andrew Pickering

An introduction to QFT, Chapter 17, by Michael E. Peskin and Daniel V. Schroeder

Quantum Chromodynamics by Walter Greiner, Stefan Schramm and Eckart Stein

Sections:

Intro: 00:00

Recap on atoms: 01:02

Pauli's Exclusion Principle: 03:23

Color Charge: 14:10

White is color neutral: 16:16

The RGB color space: 19:48

SU(3): 22:31

Triplets and singlets: 27:03

Conclusion: 36:10

[adeoluadesina]

“Quantum Mechanics is just some spicy linear algebra” has to be the most beautiful statement I’ve ever heard

[livedandletdie]

“Ah yes, the Standard Model of Physics... which holds for all known physics... scrap that, almost all known physics.” - Gravity

[jamesmnguyen]

SoME2 has blessed us with a 37min video about the Strong Force.

[BlackHole-qwqg]

Your energy is unmatched. As a theoretical physics PhD student I greatly appreciate this. I subscribe

[jonahp]

I remember a ted talk given by Grant (3b1b) on what draws people to math, describing it like a movie or a novel, with a storyline, character arcs and heroes, and even though I may need to watch this again to fully understand it, I can tell that your passion here is from having this topic click on a deep level, like a crazy plot twist in a great series! Thanks for making this :)

[mkvoq]

When I was introduced to QCD, as a programmer, I immediately picked up this RGB analogy. Because from this perspective it makes perfect sense. Pixel colors are just 3 numbers and you can freely add, subtract, multiply, divide etc. And as for anti-colors, every image editor has such "Invert" function which makes the image "negative".

[mathnerd]

"Don't mention gravity, we were having a good time"

[cosmicvoidtree]

“The video is long enough already” you greatly underestimate my patience. You could make this 2 hours long and I still won’t stop watching until I got to the end. Seriously though, great video.

[hyunsunggo]

The realization at the last moment(I won't spoil it) is just too great! I was so excited just like you were. Thank you for this great video.

[somethang]

Very nice - sidenote: The spin statistics theorem does not come from General Relativity. It's a fundamental of quantum field theory which is quantum mechanics respecting SPECIAL relativity.

[HighlyEntropicMind]

If you like this video be sure to also thank Abhigyan Hazarika, my partner for this project, and the person responsible for all the amazing animations that brought these explanations to life

[diegoorozco]

I loooovvve this subject too and I could hear you speaking about this for hours.
But shout-out to your excitement. Really, there's nothing more awesome that hearing someone excited while speaking of something they find beautiful. You are what made this video from great to excellent due to sharing a passion.
Thank you!!

[yad-thaddag]

I'm not a particularly smart guy, but you've managed to make me feel really intelligent! I loved learning about this subject! Thank you for making this video! 😄

[nigeldepledge]

It's not a coincidence that quantum chromodynamics uses the mathematics of colour. The physicists who were working this out needed an analogy based on SU(3) symmetry, and the obvious one was the primary colours and their associated anti-colours.

But it is remarkable how much of this mathematics can be deduced from some relatively simple observations of the behaviour of atoms.

[TheOneMaddin]

I think the spin statistics theorem emerges from special, not general relativity. Great video by the way 👍🏼

[hel_]

This was really nice of you to give us such a high quality video. Im still in the last year of high school ( I know very little math and nuclear physics) but I could still understand some of the details, particularly when I reached the "coloured charge" part I was like wow this is just insane. The explanation was handled elegantly and you dumbed it down for the younger audience too . Thank you, I enjoyed it very much and could learn something new again today.

[ralfbaechle]

Wonderfully done, brilliant. Putting so much fascination and fun into something deeply theoretical is plain ingenious.

[tyruskarmesin]

I always picture red green and blue color charges as three 2D vectors at 120 degree angles to each other with a length of one. Negative charges just point in the opposite directions. With that, it makes sense that r + g + b = 0, r = - g - b, etc. Gluons (eg r - b) are vectors of length sqrt 2. It all just works out.

Edit: the gluon vector length is sqrt 3, not sqrt 2.

[robbannstrom]

This is just so good! Congratulations on making a truly inspiring video on this difficult subject, and for infusing it with so much enthusiasm and love - not at all an easy thing to do... Thanks to you and your collaborator Abhigyan!

[Nibor]

Thanks Fernando, I loved the video. I have a good knowledge of mathematics and knew little bit about the Schrodinger equation and wave functions, but never really had an understanding of chromodynamics. The video was a really great introduction to this and I particularly appreciated the way that the symbols were shown in colour, so that the group actions were easy to follow. Great jog and thanks again!