Particularly Interesting Facts
We all know everything is made up of atoms, but what makes up atoms? A very condensed version:
Sunday
Neutrons are the atom’s well-known neutral particle, but they are further divisible. Like the proton, the neutron is a “composite” particle, made of even more “elementary” particles.
Monday
Protons are the atom’s positively charged particles, though they are also composite particles. Hydrogen, the lightest possible element, has just one proton and one electron.
Tuesday
The electron is usually portrayed as spinning around the atom’s nucleus, though the reality is a bit more complex. This elementary particle has a negative charge, and while the neutron and proton have about the same mass, the electron is only about 1/2000 the size.
Wednesday
The Standard Model of particle physics describes four classes of subatomic particles which make up larger composite particles. The first of these are quarks, which themselves form protons and neutrons. There are six types, or “flavors” of quarks: up, down, top, bottom, charm and strange.
Thursday
While the electron is the most famous lepton, there are six other types, the muon, tau, electron neutrino, muon neutrino, and tau neutrino. The electron is the smallest and most common of these, and other leptons often decay into electrons readily.
Friday
Gauge bosons are elementary particles known as “force carriers” and have four varieties, the photon, gluon, W and Z bosons.
Saturday
Finally is the Higgs boson, named for physicist Peter Higgs. This highly unstable particle is only observed in massive particle accelerators, and wasn’t seen until 40 years after first being theorized.
All facts this week: