Introductory Lecture on CCST 9051

What are we made of – The

Fundamental Nature of Matter

S J Xu
Department of Physics
The University of Hong Kong
sjxu@hku.hk

2018
 Why do we propose this course?
Since humanity’s conception, we have been experiencing
a great concern: What are we made of? Made of
matter or something else?
In more recent times, this great philosophical debate has
generally been called Materialism vs. Idealism. Or put
another way,

Matter vs. Spirit.

The Greatest Debate Ever!

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 What are the smallest, most
fundamental building blocks of nature?
Question For Thousands of Years!

Since ancient times, humanity conjectured that there would be some smallest,
uncuttable entities that composed everything in existence.
The Greek word ἄτομος, where we get our word "atom" from, literally means indivisible,
and yet atoms themselves can be broken up further: into protons, neutrons, and
electrons.

The electrons are truly uncuttable, but protons and neutrons can be broken up further:
into quarks and gluons.

In fact, peoples are still hunting for the smallest, most fundamental particles today.

We thus propose this course and attempt to provide a coherent

and common scientific understanding of the fundamentals of
matter world.

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Yet if we take a look at the proton (made of two up and one down quark) and the
neutron (made of one up and two down quarks), a puzzle emerges. The three
quarks within a proton or neutron, even when you add them all up, comprise less
than 0.2% of the known masses of these composite particles. The gluons
themselves are massless, while the electrons are less than 0.06% of a proton's
mass. The whole of matter, somehow, weighs much, much more than the sum of its
parts.

What are the remaining things? Dark matter？

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 Neutron

The theory of asymptotic freedom, describing the strength of the quark

interactions inside a nucleus, was worth a Nobel Prize for Gross, Politzer,
and Wilczek. The exchange of gluons is responsible for 99.8% of the
proton's and neutron's mass.
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Electron is round. Very round!

The electron is, in most conceptions, a perfect

point particle. It has no internal structure—it is
simply a point with a negative charge, some
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angular momentum, and a tiny magnet.
It’s all about symmetry in this Universe

duality
DNA

everything

the laws of nature

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 The Science of Matter
1. Cosmic scale: galaxies, stars, planets, and interstellar gasses etc.
Einstein’s theory of gravity; Newton’s second law
How about dark matter?

Einstein's Theory of Gravity Passes

Toughest Test to Date

Dark matter seems to dominate our universe,

comprising more than 80 percent of all matter.
Hitherto, the alleged dark matter particles have never
been observed, despite many efforts to detect them.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2016-11-theory-
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gravity-dark.html#jCp
 2. Macroscopic scale: Physical objects can be seen by the naked eye.
Classic mechanics, Thermodynamics, Geometric optics, Electromagnetic theory
etc.

In a pinhole camera an image of the scene is formed

by the rays of light that are reflected by the objects in
the scene and fall through the center of projection
onto the opposite wall of the box, forming a photo- Two-photon luminescence images of the ZnO
negative image of the scene. crystal rod with length of ~ 30 mm.

X. Wang et al, Sci. Bull. 63, 1392 (2018).

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3. Microscopic scale: generally refers to things humans can't see with the naked
eye.--beyond the visible.
Quantum mechanics, atomic and molecular physics

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The Science of Life

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What & Study Method？

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Five Basics？5 五

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 Five States

There’s a fourth state that

occurs if you heat up a gas too While solid, liquid and gas
severely: a plasma. may be the most common
But conversely, for some types states of matter, at
of matter, there is a fifth phase extremely low
that occurs in nature when you temperatures, condensates
cool a material too greatly: a can emerge, with unique
condensate. physical properties.
Unlike all the other states of
matter, condensates display
unique properties not seen
anywhere else in nature.
Image credit: © Johan
Jarnestad/The Royal
Swedish Academy of
Sciences.
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 Five Elements
In the world of metaphysics, the universe is believed
to be made up of five matters, namely, Metal, Wood,
Water, Fire and Earth. These five matters are also
referred to as the Five Elements.

These five elements are very closely related to

each other and their relationship can be
explained using the Cycle of Birth and Cycle of
Destruction.

Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the

fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily
defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the
broadest possible terms:
What is there?
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What is it like?
 Plato’s Geometry of Elements: 5

Plato believed that he could describe the

Universe using five simple shapes. These Plato’s Geometry of Elements
shapes, called the Platonic solids, did not
originate with Plato. In fact, they go back
thousands of years before Plato. But Plato made
these solids central to a vision of the physical
world that links ideal to real, and microcosm to
macrocosm in an original, and truly remarkable,
style.

AN1927.2727-31 Neolithic Carved Sandstone

Balls, Copyright Ashmolean Museum, University
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of Oxford.
 Regular Pentagon: The most
symmetrical shape
ONLY ONE?
the most symmetrical, the
regular pentagon

Any pentagon has exactly five diagonals. These diagonals trace

out the shape of a classic five-pointed star.

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 Five Basic Electron Group Geometry
1. Linear Geometry
2. Trigonal Planar Geometry
3. Tetrahedral Geometry
4. Trigonal Bipyramid
5. Octahedral Geometry

There are five basic arrangements of electron

groups around a central atom. 18
 5G Networks and Future

One day, intelligence will be integrated into infrastructure. Cars will drive
themselves, houses will be self-cleaning, agriculture will work sustainably, and
electrical grids will respond automatically to fluxes in energy demands. Simply
put, we’ll live in a smarter, more connected world.
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 Four…??!! 4 亖
FOUR

The Ruler - Saturn

4 is the number of Foundation - the four winds,
the four seasons, the four astrological elements.
4’s are solid, ‘four-square’ reliable, practical,
plodding, home-loving, succeed through
diligence and perseverance.

The four elements of western culture are:

EARTH, AIR, FIRE, and WATER. These four
elements were believed to be essential to life.

The purpose of 4 is to share knowledge and

wisdom.

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 Three…??!! 3 三
3 is:
•a rough approximation of π (3.1415...) and a very rough approximation of e
(2.71828..) when doing quick estimates.
•the first odd prime number and the second smallest prime.
•Three is the number of dimensions that humans can perceive. Humans
perceive the universe to have three spatial dimensions.

Chinese Taoism: 三生萬物

All matters are made up of three kinds of particles.

Triangle Transistor

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Two is the smallest and first prime number, and the only even prime number.
Two complementary regions
of nucleic acid molecules will
bind and form a double helical
structure held together by
base pairs.
Two…??!! 2 二
Two types of nucleons
(proton and neutron)
Duality (electricity and magnetism)
Duality (wave and particle)
A quantum particle is represented Interference of a quantum
by a wave packet. particle with itself.
Chinese Taoism: 萬物負陰而抱陽
Both logic and set
Duality is represented by Yin and Yang.
operations：“TRUE”
or “FALSE”.
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 One…??!! 1 一
天
One with nature?

The generating function that has all coefficients 1 is given by

人 𝟐 𝟑

合 One Electron Universe?

一

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The Fundamental Ideas

Einstein:
Energy and matter: mass times
light speed square.

Planck:
Energy and photon:
Energy and frequency interrelated
by a natural constant (called
Planck constant)

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Bohr model of atoms
Hydrogen atom energy levels
n=2
n=1
2 -3.4 eV
Quantum leap
1 -13.6 eV

DE = 10 electron-volts

1 eV =1.602 x 10-19 Joules

Quantum Leap - DE ~ 1 x 10-18 Joules

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Is this matter world of duality?
We live in a world of duality, day and night, positive
and negative, male and female, etc.

For example, both photons and electrons show

an apparent “duality”: Waves & Particles!
de Broglie’s hypothesis
It's not just light that has this dual
personality; maybe it's everything.

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Are Atoms and Sub-atomic Particles Spinning?

• Spin  the intrinsic angular momentum; it takes

discrete values (the spin quantum number s.)
• Two groups of quantum particles:
– fermions - spin one-half (e.g., electrons).
• s=+1/2 and
• s=-1/2
– bosons - spin one particles (e.g., photons).
• s=+1,
• s=0, and
• s=-1
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What did Einstein say?

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What’s the Main Aim of This Course?

This course intends to introduce

a coherent understanding of the
matter world that we live in,
and aims to arouse course
members’ general interest on
the “big science” topics such as
the atomic theory and the
mystical quantum nature of our
world.
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How to Achieve our Goal?

We Study Together!
We Gain Together!

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Final Remarks

“Success is the ability

to go from failure to failure
with no loss of
enthusiasm.”

Sir Winston Churchill

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Latest News：CERN plans new particle
accelerator four times bigger than Large Hadron Collider

Key points:

• The Future Circular

Collider would have a
100km tunnel, compared to
the 27km Large Hadron
Collider
• If approved, the first
phase would be completed
in the 2040s and the final
phase in the 2050s
• The new particle
accelerator would help
answer more questions
about the building blocks of
physics

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