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Re: Forces

1. The strong force is *not* always attractive. For like charges Spin 0
mesons (pions, eta,... ) are attractive, while spin 1 mesons (rho,
omega, ... are repulsive. The lighter spin 0 mesons have greater range
and dominate at low densities or "large" separations. ("large" means about
1 Fermi)

The particles mediating the weak interactions are spin 1 bosons, so the
interaction will be repulsive for like charged particles. (i.e. when two
left handed electron neutrinos interact weakly the force is repulsive.)

On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, LUDWIK KOWALSKI wrote:

Here is a question I did not know how to answer. What is the directionality
of the so-called "weak" force, is it attractive, repulsive or both? I do
know gravitational and "strong" forces are always attractive and that the
electromagnetic forces can be either attractive and repulsive.
Ludwik Kowalski
P.S.
By "strong" I mean forces between nucleons (ignoring their inner structure).