#nuclear force

The Curies’ discoveries helped settle a long-standing debate. Geologists, amazed at the glacial pace of rock formations, realized that the Earth must be billions of years old. But Lord Kelvin, one of the giants of classical Victorian physics, calculated that a molten Earth would cool down in a matter of a few million years. Who was right?  As it turns out, it was the geologists. Lord Kelvin did not understand that a new force of nature, the one being discovered by the Curies called the nuclear force, could add to the Earth’s heat. Since radioactive decay could take place over billions of years, it meant that the Earth’s core could be heated by the decay of uranium, thorium, and other radioactive elements. So the enormous power of shattering earthquakes, thundering volcanoes, and slow, grinding continental drift all originate from the nuclear force.

The nuclear forces are less familiar than electromagnetism and gravity because they operate only on atomic and subatomic scales.

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