The energy responsible for our existence - BINDING ENERGY
Have you ever wondered how we continue to exist in this world? How all the things around us exist with full glory. Whether its a small plant in a damp pot lying at the corner of your room or the majestic Alpine peak everything including us exists for a time, deteriorates and changes in to another form. Take plants for instance. They start out as a single seed which develops into a full grown plant. The plant after flowering for a particular time dies.
The fundamental thing which makes our existence possible is what physicists call "binding energy".
In order to understand the concept of binding energy let me refresh your memory. Let me explain how different atomic particles behave in certain conditions. In atoms we have electrons that revolve around a nucleus. Protons and neutrons inhabit nucleus.
Protons are positively charged and electrons are negatvely charged.
Now if we try to bring together two identical or even similar particles close together, they repel each other. On the other hand if we try to bring close together two oppositely charged particles they will attract each other.
So, now we are well aware that similar particles repel each other.
But, despite that we see that protons stay together in the nucleus. Not only that we see that there are so many different types of elements that have different number of protons in their nuclei. How does it work? Doesn't electrostatic repulsion repel the protons away from each other and break the nuclei? It does not.
It is the binding energy that stops this from happening. For every stable nucleus, there is a binding force within the nucleus which is greater than the electrostatic repulsion. This force is responsible for the stability of an atom. This force makes sure that atoms don't break loose and that is what keeps the world so vivid and rich in every detail by letting zillions of atoms of more than one hundred types of elements to exist.
