Elementary Particles

Caesar_Rahil · Sep 17, 2005

How many elementary particles have been discovered.

Norman · Sep 17, 2005

please see http://pdg.lbl.gov/pdg.html

There are 6 different quarks, 6 different leptons, and 12 different gauge bosons. Then you have all the antiparticles for these different particles. This is in regards to the standard model of particle physics. Please see the link above for much more detail.
Cheers,
Ryan

Caesar_Rahil · Sep 17, 2005

I have found another site:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/part-flash.html

arivero · Sep 17, 2005

Norman said:

please see http://pdg.lbl.gov/pdg.html

There are 6 different quarks, 6 different leptons, and 12 different gauge bosons. Then you have all the antiparticles for these different particles. This is in regards to the standard model of particle physics. Please see the link above for much more detail.
Cheers,
Ryan

I love this question, because if you go into details... how should you count the particles? It seems that for fermions it is a question of mass, if the mass is the same you consider it to be the same particle, even if the charge is not. But for bosons we count W+ and W- as two particles.

If we include charge and antiparticles in the fermions, we have

6*3*2= 36 quarks and
6*2= 12 leptons

If we consider Parity, we have
36*2= 72 quarks
12*2= 24 leptons, or we had 18 if there were not right neutrinos.

thus about 96 "particles".

dlgoff · Sep 17, 2005

You all probably have seen this http://pdg.ift.unesp.br/particleadventure/frameless/chart_frame.html.
Regards
Don

Astronuc · Sep 17, 2005

You will find much discussion on this topic in the top thread of this forum

Elementary particles presented

Norman · Sep 17, 2005

arivero said:

I love this question, because if you go into details... how should you count the particles? It seems that for fermions it is a question of mass, if the mass is the same you consider it to be the same particle, even if the charge is not. But for bosons we count W+ and W- as two particles.

If we include charge and antiparticles in the fermions, we have

6*3*2= 36 quarks and
6*2= 12 leptons

If we consider Parity, we have
36*2= 72 quarks
12*2= 24 leptons, or we had 18 if there were not right neutrinos.

thus about 96 "particles".

This is very true... I struggled with whether or not to mention these points. But I decided to go with just what I stated for brevity, and simplicity. I had the chart that dlgoff mentioned in mind when I posted this... But a really good question is, why don't we explain from the beginning that there are 3 different color charges of quarks? I think the answer lies in the color neutrality of hadrons. But I agree, as usual the devil is in the details!
Cheers,
Ryan