Strong Force

It is universally accepted that attractive forces between particles occur as a result of another particle (photon, meson, boson, gluon) exchanged between the other two. But that idea is counter-intuitive because unless the exchange particle has negative mass, it should impart momentum pushing the attracting particles apart.

The largest example of an exchange particle involved in attraction is the hydrogen bonding in chemistry. In this case a proton is exchanged between negatively charged parts of 2 molecules. In this case, the exchange of the proton has nothing to do with the attraction. The attraction is due to the electrostatic attraction of the proton for the electronegative parts of each molecule. The proton exchange is simply a result of that attraction. Could it be that in the other cases of attraction between particles, that the particle exchange is also a result rather than the cause of attraction?

My proposal is that particles attract each other by some mechanism in which they seek their mirror images.

Particles that are perfect mirror images (e.g. electron – positron) always destroy each other. But particles that are almost like mirror images form stable composites. An electron and proton are mirror images in charge, but not in structures. Their composite is the hydrogen atom.

With respect to strong force, a neutron and a proton are also semi mirror images. They are semi mirror images in structure (the proton is 2 up quarks and a down quark, while the neutron is 2 down quarks and an up quark.

U	D
U	D
D	U

This is a mirror image.

They are also semi mirror images in charge. The up quark has the opposite, but not equal charge of the down quark. The stable component of the imperfect mirror image of the proton and the neutron is the deuteron – and in fact, all atomic nuclei except proton – hydrogen.

Now according to existing theory, all nucleons (protons and neutrons) will feel strong force for each other once electrostatic repulsion is overcome. Larger nuclei are created when free neutrons stick to an existing nucleus, because of strong force. Then that nucleus undergoes beta decay, converting the neutron to a proton. But neutrons always stick to the structures that contain their semi mirror image protons. Even though neutrons should stick together because of the strong force, you never hear of composites of pure neutrons (except in neutron stars in which neutrons are held together by gravity).

It seems reasonable that the composites (nuclei) of pure neutrons don’t occur in nature because neutrons are not semi mirror images of each other, and composites of protons and neurtons are common in nature because they are imperfect mirror images of each other.

In fact, it seems that stable structures in nature are either composites of semi mirror image particles (atoms and nuclei) or one of the components of them (protons, electrons, quarks). Even a neutron could be considered a composite of semi mirror image particles – an electron and a proton modified by an anti-neutrino (i.e. a neutron decays to an electron, proton, and anti-neutrino).