Deep Physics: Nuclear and Particle Physics for Talented High Schoolers
Real nuclear and particle physics, taught from the structure of the nucleus through the Standard Model of elementary particles. A Modern Physics elective for talented high schoolers.
Online for homeschool families anywhere · or in-person in Princeton, NJ
A World Through the Lens of Nuclear and Particle Physics
The nucleus is small. The particles inside it are smaller still. And yet, between them, they explain the energy of the Sun, the dating of ancient artifacts, the imaging of human tumors, and every atom in your body.
Open a smoke detector. The pellet inside contains americium-241. After 432 years, exactly half of those atoms will still be there, still emitting alpha particles. After another 432, half again.
The sunlight on your skin left the Sun’s surface 8 minutes ago. The energy in it was released by fusion in the core, but the photons that carried it took roughly a hundred thousand years to random-walk their way out of the dense interior. Both fission (in a reactor) and fusion (in the Sun) release energy, for the same underlying reason: the products sit closer to the iron peak of the binding-energy curve than the reactants. Two opposite reactions, one principle.
Muons rain through your body roughly ten thousand times every minute. They are born when cosmic rays hit the upper atmosphere. They should not survive the trip to ground level. They do, because relativistic time dilation is real.
At CERN, protons are accelerated to 99.9999991 percent of the speed of light and made to collide. In 2012, those collisions produced the Higgs boson at exactly the mass the Standard Model predicted, decades after Higgs proposed it.
Two simple ideas carry you through all of it: energy is conserved, and a handful of conservation rules govern which transformations are allowed in the microworld. Combined with quantum mechanics, these laws explain everything from the half-life of radium to the energy of the stars.
You will:
- Compute the energy released in a nuclear reaction from the mass defect.
- Predict the activity and remaining quantity of any radioactive sample from its decay constant and half-life.
- Determine which particle reactions are allowed and which are forbidden using conservation of baryon number, lepton number, and charge.
- Place any of the known elementary particles in its row of the Standard Model.
What You Will Actually Understand
1. The Atomic Nucleus
Where the chemistry of the world ends and the physics of the very small begins. Rutherford’s 1909 gold-foil experiment, where alpha particles scattering back from a thin foil revealed a small, dense nucleus. Composition of the nucleus: protons and neutrons. Isotopes and the nuclear chart. The size of a nucleus and the density of nuclear matter. The strong nuclear force as the glue. Binding energy and the mass defect, where E = mc² becomes concrete. The curve of binding energy, and why iron sits at its peak.
2. Radioactivity
Why some nuclei are stable and others are not, and what they emit when they decay. Alpha, beta, and gamma decays. Electron capture and positron emission. The decay law and the half-life as the natural scale for nuclear time. Activity in becquerel and curie. Ionizing radiation and its biological effects. The sievert, and the everyday radiation environment.
3. Nuclear Reactions, Fission, and Fusion
Where massive amounts of energy come from. Nuclear reactions and Q-values. Fission of heavy nuclei. Chain reactions and criticality. The nuclear reactor as a controlled chain reaction. Thermonuclear fusion. The energy of the Sun and the stars. The slow path toward controlled fusion on Earth.
4. Detection and Applications
How we see the invisible. The Geiger counter. The cloud chamber. Scintillation detectors. Radiocarbon dating and the chronology of ancient artifacts. Nuclear medicine: PET scans, radiotherapy, medical isotopes. The history of nuclear weapons, briefly.
5. Elementary Particles
The building blocks of matter and force. Leptons: the electron, muon, tau, and their neutrinos. Hadrons: the proton, neutron, pion, kaon. Quarks: six flavours, three generations. Gauge bosons: the photon, W, Z, and gluon. Antimatter. The Standard Model in outline.
6. Conservation Laws and the Four Interactions
What is allowed, and what is forbidden. Conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum, extended to relativistic regimes. Baryon number, lepton number, and electric charge. The four fundamental interactions: strong, electromagnetic, weak, gravity. Discovery of new particles and the role of conservation laws. Current frontiers: the Higgs, neutrino masses, dark matter, and the puzzles still open.
The specific topics, and the depth given to each, may shift depending on class priorities and the dynamics of the cohort.
Schedule, Pricing & Enrollment
Formats: Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters.
Schedule, format, tuition, refund policy, and certificates apply to every Lyceum course. They live on the Physics Lyceum: High School overview.
To enroll, schedule a call. We confirm fit, prerequisites, and the right semester.
Part of the SoTS Physics Lyceum
Nuclear and Particle Physics is one of four Modern Physics electives in the SoTS Physics Lyceum: a multi-year curriculum in Princeton, NJ. Students earning the Mastery in Classical and Modern Physics complete the six classical core courses plus any two of the four modern electives.
Classical core: Mechanics of motion. Mechanics of bodies and fluids. Waves and oscillations. Thermodynamics. Electricity and magnetism. Geometric optics.
Modern electives: Special Relativity. Quantum mechanics. Nuclear and particle physics. Astronomy and cosmology.
The Lyceum is built on the Deep Physics methodology.