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A subatomic particle is an Elementary or Composite Particle smaller than an Atom . Particle Physics and Nuclear Physics are concerned with the study of these particles, their interactions, and non-atomic Matter composed from them. Subatomic particles include the atomic constituents Electron s, Proton s, and Neutron s. Protons and neutrons are Composite Particle s, consisting of Quark s. A proton contains two up quarks and one down quark, while a neutron consists of one up quark and two down quarks; the quarks are held together in the nucleus by Gluon s. There are six different types of quark in all ('up', 'down', 'bottom', 'top', 'strange', and 'charm'), as well as other particles including Photon s and Neutrino s which are produced copiously in the Sun . Most of the particles that have been discovered are not encountered under normal earth conditions but are found in Cosmic Ray s and are produced by scattering processes in Particle Accelerator s. There are dozens of subatomic particles. INTRODUCTION TO PARTICLES In Particle Physics , the conceptual idea of a particle is one of several concepts inherited from Classical Physics , the world we experience, that are used to describe how Matter and Energy behave at the very molecular scales of Quantum Mechanics . As physicists use the term, the meaning of the word "particle" is one which understands how particles are radically different at the quantum-level, and rather different from the common understanding of the term. The idea of a Particle is one which had to undergo serious rethinking in light of experiments which showed that that the smallest particles (of light) could behave just like Waves . The difference is indeed vast, and required the new concept of Wave-particle Duality to state that quantum-scale "particles" are understood to behave in a way which resembles both particles and waves. Another new concept, the Uncertainty Principle , meant that analyzing particles at these scales required a Statistical approach. All of these factors combined such that the very notion of a discrete "particle" has been ultimately replaced by the concept of something like wave-packet of an uncertain boundary, whose properties are only known as probabilities, and whose interactions with other "particles" remain largely a mystery, even 80 years after quantum mechanics was established. ENERGY and Waves . For example, light can be expressed as both Particles and Waves . This Paradox is known as the Duality Paradox. |
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