Coulomb Force: Is my understanding correct?

[PeterDonis]

Would you please tell me if it is necessary to mention this formula?

It depends on what you plan to say. As I said at the end of post #25, if you're going to talk about binding energy per nucleon, I think you have to talk about the semi-empirical mass formula, since that formula describes our best current theoretical understanding (incomplete as it is) of why the binding energy per nucleon curve has the shape that it has. Unless all you are going to do is show the binding energy per nucleon curve as measured experimentally and not try to explain why it has the shape it has; but that seems incomplete.

 

[A M]

Unless all you are going to do is show the binding energy per nucleon curve as measured experimentally and not try to explain why it has the shape it has; but that seems incomplete

What if I show the diagrams of each term and then combine them together?
E.g. for the shape of energy due to strong nuclear force I can say this force has short range characteristics and thus for lightest nuclei the energy due to the strong force grows rapidly. But this trend approaches a limit, because the strong nuclear force is short-range and can't act across longer nuclear length scales.
for larger nuclei the nucleons in the interior have more neighbors than those on the surface, so according to the fact that the larger the nuclei, the higher their ratio of interior nucleons to surface nucleons , the energy of strong force per nucleon generally grows as mass number increases. (but grows more and more slowly depending on the ratio.)

But if I wanted to describe the shape by SEMF, it wouldn't be correct for lightest nuclei; since volume term and surface term are in fact meaningless for some of those nuclei.

 

[PeterDonis]

What if I show the diagrams of each term and then combine them together?

Then obviously you have to talk about the formula because you need to explain where each individual diagram comes from. Personally I don't think adding that level of complication will be helpful, particularly since all the individual terms are just plausible approximations anyway. See below.

if I wanted to describe the shape by SEMF, it wouldn't be correct for lightest nuclei; since volume term and surface term are in fact meaningless for some of those nuclei

As I said, the SEMF is an approximation for all nuclei. Our theoretical understanding of nuclear binding energy is still incomplete. So anything you say about it is going to be an approximation based on our current incomplete understanding.

A question you should be asking yourself is how the article you plan to write is going to add anything useful to what has already been written. Everything you're talking about saying in the article is something that is already said, in much the same words, in various references you've given. Why say the same things over again?

 

[A M]

A question you should be asking yourself is how the article you plan to write is going to add anything useful to what has already been written.

Do you really mean I should write something new? I'm not a scientist...

 

[PeterDonis]

Do you really mean I should write something new? I'm not a scientist...

Yes, I know. And that means you should think very carefully about how helpful anything you write is going to be to anyone else. That doesn't mean you should stop trying to learn or stop asking questions; it just means that, at your current state of knowledge, you might be better off thinking of what you are doing as nothing more than building up your own understanding; you might not want to focus so much on learning these things so that you can write an article about them.

 

[A M]

you might not want to focus so much on learning these things so that you can write an article about them.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but could you be a bit more explicit?

 

[PeterDonis]

could you be a bit more explicit?

I mean that before you even start thinking about what should be in any article you might want to write, you should first build up your own understanding. At your current level of understanding, you might not even know enough to know what ought to be in an article that would be useful to others.

 

[A M]

that would be useful to others.

Even for beginners?

 

[PeterDonis]

Even for beginners?

Have you taken a look at other articles written for beginners? Are they written by people who are beginners themselves?

A fairly good general rule in teaching is that the introductory, beginner classes are taught by the more experienced teachers, whose knowledge of the subject matter is more thorough. The teachers who are fairly new to the subject themselves teach more advanced students. Similar remarks apply to articles.

 

[A M]

-Please close this thread-

 

[PeterDonis]

-Please close this thread-

Thread closed. If you find you want to ask more questions on this topic, you can PM me and I will reopen it.