What are the fundamental particles that make up a nucleus?
Asked by: James Bortner Answer Tough question there… This is one of the fundamental problems of physics (well, nuclear/particle physics): To find out what matter really consists of. Atoms, which are considered to be the building blocks of “ordinary” matter, are made up of electrons, a lot of “empty space”, and nuclei. We still believe electrons are fundamental particles. “Empty space” is may be very interesting otherwise (since it is anything but empty space) but we’ll ignore that in this case. The remaining part is the nucleus, and that’s where we run into a lot of trouble. Any typical textbook will say that a nucleus consists of neutrons and protons. Neutrons and protons are particles of about equal mass (the neutron is about half a percent heavier), the proton has an electrical charge of +1e (equal to the charge of the electron but of opposite sign) while the neutron is well, neutral. Is this the end of the story? No. Because we know that protons and neutrons are not fundamental p
