According to this website, the range of the Strong Nuclear Force is 1.5 x 10[sup]-15[/sup] meters, or 1.5 x 10[sup]-5[/sup] Ångstroms.
This other website has a handy-dandy Nuclear Radius calculator about 2/3 of the way down the page. According to this, a single proton (atomic mass 1) would have a radius of 1.2 x 10[sup]-15[/sup] meters, and an alpha particle (helium nucleus, atomic mass 4) would have a radius of 1.9 x 10[sup]-15[/sup] meters. Their diameters would of course be twice these values, or 2.4 and 3.8 femtometers, respectively.
While these values are indeed larger than the 1.5 femtometer range listed above for the Strong Nuclear Force, I’d hardly call that distance MUCH smaller than the sizes of the protons and neutrons inside the nucleus. If anything, the Strong Nuclear Force maximum distance is on par with the distances between nucleons.
And I absolutely positively must protest about this line from the same Staff Report:
Every self-respecting Star Trek geek knows that warp speeds don’t scale that way. Any fan’ll tell you that Warp 9 = 729 times the speed of light in the original series, and Warp 9 = 1000 times the speed of light in The Next Generation.
Well, it would seem logical that the distance the forces acted over woudl have to be about the same as the distance between nucleons. That is, if there’s an interaction between two particles x distance apart, the force would have to extend that distance. What good is the strong force if it can’t even make it past the boundaries of the particle generating it?
What? Where are you getting your warp-speed formulas from?
According to both the chart in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, and the rec.arts.startrek.tech warp velocities FAQ, Warp 9 in the TNG era is 1516 times the speed of light, which corresponds to a formula of “Warp X = X^3.3333333… c”.
(I was incorrect when I initially stated that TNG Warp 9 is a mere 1000 times the speed of light. Flog me.)
Which is why I took the article to task for saying “We’re talking about distances much smaller than the protons and neutrons inside nuclei.” Saying “about the same as the size of” or “on the scale of” would have been more apropos.
Any fan’ll tell you that Warp 9 = 729 times the speed of light in the original series, and Warp 9 = 1000 times the speed of light in The Next Generation.