Practice question

**Nuclear force** strong, short-range ~1 fm, attractive, charge independent, saturated in large nuclei because each nucleon interacts only with neighbors, not all others, so BE/A saturates ~8 MeV, primary factor limiting stable nuclei size is Coulomb repulsion between protons growing as Z² vs strong force saturating, beyond Z≈83 no stable nuclei, competition between Coulomb and strong. The nuclear force is a strong, short-range attractive force that binds protons and neutrons in the nucleus, overcoming the Coulomb repulsion between protons. It is much stronger than the Coulomb force and does not depend on the electric charge of the nucleons. Using E_n = -13.6/n² eV, r_n =