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Theory of Atom
115
Touch (Sparsa)
Another important characteristic quality of an atom is touch. The Bh.S mentions two types of composite bodies-(i) catuhsparsi i.e. those with four kinds of touch and (ii) astasparsi i.e. those with eight kinds of touch.40 The former are possessed of four kinds of basic touch :
[i] Viscous [ii] dry [iii] Cold
[iv] hot The latter have four additonal kinds of touch :
[i] Light [ii] heavy [iii] Soft
(iv) hard In fact, atoms have only two kinds of basic touch. They are:41
[i] either viscous or dry (ii) either cold or hot
Similarly, the heaviness and lightness are to be identified with mass. An atom has no mass but it must possess either a positive electric charge (snigdhatva) or a negative electric charge (rukșatva). All catuhsparsi compositons have no mass. In other words, paramāņu pudgala and all catuhsaparsi pudgala are neither heavy nor light. They are massless.
When physicists listed all the known particles by the order of their masses, from the lightest to the heaviest, they discovered that sub-atomic particles fall roughly into three categories-(i) the light-weight particles (lepton), (ii) the medium-weight particles (meson), and (iii) the heavy-weight particles (baryon).
Some of sub-atomic particles compared with Jain Physics by Muni Mahendra Kumar are given in the following table:42
Table No. : 5 Name of the particle Mass Electric charge Touch Electron
negative dry, light Positron
positive viscous, light Proton
positive viscous, heavy Neutron
neutral viscous, dry, heavy Photon
neutral viscous, dry, neither heavy
nor light Pion positive
positive viscous, light Pion-negative
negative dry, light Pion neutral
neutral viscous, light, dry A = light (lepton] B = medium (meson) C = heavy baryon)
