The Liquid Drop Model
This is one of the first models of nuclear structure, proposed by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker in 1935. It describes the nucleus as a classical fluid made up of neutrons and protons, with an internal repulsive electric force proportional to the number of protons. The quantum mechanical nature of these particles appears via the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that no two nucleons of the same kind can be at the same state. Thus the fluid is actually what is known as a fermi fluid. This simple model reproduces the main features of the binding energy of nuclei.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Structure
Famous quotes containing the words liquid, drop and/or model:
“Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watery glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Exaggeration is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight generosity, a drop too much.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“She represents the unavowed aspiration of the male human being, his potential infidelity—and infidelity of a very special kind, which would lead him to the opposite of his wife, to the “woman of wax” whom he could model at will, make and unmake in any way he wished, even unto death.”
—Marguerite Duras (b. 1914)