What is Particle Physics?
Particle physics, or elementary particle physics , is the study of how the smallest building blocks of matter interact with each other through forces. Quarks and electrons are examples of elementary particles. The concept of what is “elementary,” i.e. not built of anything else, changes as science progresses. Thirty years ago, it was believed that the proton was an elementary particle, but it has long since been known that it is built from three quarks. It is possible that some of the particles that we now regard as elementary are actually built from something else. Because we have not been able to see any substructure yet means that, even if such substructure is discovered, we can correctly continue to describe the particle as elementary in all circumstances that we have already experienced. A model does not become incorrect just because one learns something more. It rather becomes a valid part of a new, better description. Experiments in particle physics usually proceed by smashing
Particle physics, also called “high energy physics,” is the study of the fundamental particles and their interactions. To explore such particles at the requisite subatomic distance scales requires particles with high energies. Most experiments use particle accelerators to provide such particles, but it is also possible to use cosmic rays, a small fraction of which have energies well beyond the reach of accelerators. According to our present understanding, which is embodied in a model known as the Standard Model, the true elementary particles – the building blocks of matter as we know it – are quarks and leptons. They interact through three types of interactions – Strong, Electromagnetic, and Weak (although we know the gravitational interaction exists, it hasn’t been incorporated effectively into the model yet). Quarks interact strongly and are thought to be the constituents of all strongly interacting observed particles, which are called hadrons. Neutrons, protons, mesons and hyperons
Particle physics is the study of what everything is made of. Particle Physicists study the fundamental particles that make up all of matter, and how they interact with each other. Everything around us is made up of these fundamental building blocks of nature. So, what are these building blocks? In the early 1900’s it was believed that atoms were fundamental; they were thought to be the smallest part of nature and were not made up of anything smaller. Soon thereafter, experiments were done to see if this truly was the case. It was discovered that atoms were not fundamental at all, but were made up of two components: a positively charged nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negative electrons. Then the nucleus was probed to see if it was fundamental, but it too was discovered to be made up of something smaller; positive protons and neutral neutrons bound together with the cloud of electrons still surrounding it. Now that these protons and neutrons were found, it was time to see if they were
Particle physics is the study of fundamental particles and the forces that guide them. Because many of the fundamental particles only appear during relativistic collisions in particle accelerators, colloquially called “atom smashers,” particle physics is also known as “high-energy physics”. Physicists have been slamming together particles at extreme speeds since 1929. The best picture of particle physics we have today is called the Standard Model, developed painstakingly in the 1970s. It was a reaction to the “particle zoo”, a huge proliferation of unusual fundamental particles discovered during high-energy physics experiments in the 1950s and 1960s. The final particle count ended up to be around 31, including 24 fermions (quarks, electrons, neutrinos, and their antiparticles), 6 bosons (one of which, the graviton, has yet to be observed), and one elusive particle responsible for the property of mass itself, which also has yet to observed, the Higgs boson. Basically, the fermions make
Particle physics is the study of the fundamental particles of the universe, or, in other words, particle physics is the study of really, really small stuff. As of right now, we know of 12 fundamental particles: six quarks and six leptons. (See the particle periodic table to the right.) This is known as the Standard Model in the physics world. There are currently hundreds of identified particles made from combinations of these twelve fundamental particles and scientists are still finding more. So now you ask, “What exactly are quarks and leptons?
