Hardness of Neutronium: Estimating Magnitude

[jquark]

on Mohs' scale what is the hardness of neutronium in its native environment?

we record the mass of a teaspoon full, so compared to the ratio of EM to gravity, what is the next level to fermi gas of degenerate matter? just how hard is it? an order of magnitude estimate will be fine. seems if a mountain on a 15km pulsar would be a millimeter and if it shifted on a magnetar it would blast (gee it doesn't have symbol font) $$\gamma$$ rays across the galaxy, it must be...unusual. [tex]\gamma[\tex] i am now an official texican.

 

[jquark]

i wasnt being facetious.

similar to the charge mass ratio of the electron, what is the next ratio to this state? how strong is the weak force?

gravitationally speaking how much mass does a neutron star have, we can start with the core as a natural environment. what kind of pressure is there? counter-pressure would be a good measure of hardness. within some philosophical order of magnitude. (in other words, the numbers are probably accurate but its our minds...)

i ran into the equations for relativistic stars a while ago i may run into them again sometime.

 

[Chronos]

Neutronium is science fiction. You can derive an equation of state for the surface of a neutron star, but, it does not translate into earthly measures like mohr's hardness. The nature of neutron star interiors is very uncertain. It may be fairly similar to the surface, or an exotic quark soup.

 

[Khursed]

I don't know the hardness of "neutronium" but here's a quote from wiki, about pauli's exclusion principle, and our friendly neutron star.

Astronomy provides another spectacular demonstration of this effect, in the form of white dwarf stars and neutron stars. For both such bodies, their usual atomic structure is disrupted by large gravitational forces, leaving the constituents supported by "degeneracy pressure" alone. This exotic form of matter is known as degenerate matter. In white dwarfs, the atoms are held apart by the degeneracy pressure of the electrons. In neutron stars, which exhibit even larger gravitational forces, the electrons have merged with the protons to form neutrons, which produce a larger degeneracy pressure. Neutrons are the most "rigid" objects known - their Young modulus (or more accurately, bulk modulus) is 20 orders of magnitude larger than that of diamond.

That should give you a small idea of its hardness.

 

[jquark]

excellent. i couldn't remember names of other scales. i ran across something in a book review i believe about this kind of thing, saying that neutron stars' exterior is a solid crust, but the interior is more of a dense liquid. so the core wouldn't quite be the place to look.

that was well written it almost sounded like sagan talking for most of it.

thank you :) element number zero.

 

[jquark]

i was looking at some fields, with three quarks in the neutron, that combination of them must be harder than the set for the proton. weak force is so strong.

and still half life of a proton 10^33y if that and neutron 15 min or so.

they can hold back a near-black hole wow