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Re: forces



Ludwik asks (probably rhetorically):

Is the term "Pauli force" acceptable? Where does it fit our system
of "only four forces"? Does it have the same nature as an attractive
force between the non-overlaping nucleons?

My answer to the third question is "No." It is the repulsive force
which prevents a nucleon from joining a filled shell. The "Pauli force"
is, of course, a bastard; it is unacceptable in polite company. I'm
its father and its mother would not acknowledge it! I identify it as
such when I introduce it, which I do because I feel, as Ludwik does,
that identifying "four fundamental forces" in nature is of no real
conceptual value to our undergraduate students. (And I don't
understand why the word "force" is introduced, when "interaction"
would be far more appropriate.) Try explaining the attraction between
a positive and a negative charge to an undergraduate as an exchange
of virtual photons which is most unlike tossing a heavy ball back and
forth between them.

Leigh