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I'm a senior student in high school and we are learning about Particle Physics in Physics. I wanted to ask a question about neutrons. Is there a possibility that neutrons may not even be a particle, just a bond, relationship or pairing between electrons and protons? Can neutrons just be the cancelling out of electrons and protons charges, forming a neutral charge inside the nucleus and not an actual particle? For example, carbon has 6 electrons, 6 protons and 6 neutrons. Could the 6 neutrons and 6 protons cancel each other out forming 6 neutral charges making the atom stable? The protons and electrons would still exist but they just form a stable atom by being neutrally charged. I know this is extremely unlikely and most likely wrong but I really wanted to know if there was an answer to this or is the theory we have have no correct and there is no need for further debate.

Urb
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Ryan Taylor
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2 Answers2

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or is the theory we have have no correct and there is no need for further debate.

You are a hundred years too late to be able to play with the models of nuclear physics. Physics reasearch at present has progressed to the level that has shown that protons and neutrons, not only are the two versions of the"same" particle called collectively a nucleon , but also that the nucleons are composites of smaller particles called quarks. There is a lot to study ahead, if you continue your studies.

AccidentalTaylorExpansion
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anna v
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If I understand your thoughts correctly, and you had a typo when you said "Could the 6 neutrons (you wanted to say electrons) and 6 protons cancel each other", you expected a carbon atom to have the same number of protons and neutrons. If you know that there are carbon 13 (which has 7 neutrons) and carbon 14 (which has 8 neutrons), you may think twice.

verdelite
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