Standard model says 17 particals, M theory says 18?

[rcx299]

Hi. I've only just started reading on M-theory. I'm otherwise a lay person so I'm going to have some basic questions. Here's my first.

Standard Model has 17 elementary particles right? But doesn't M-theory say there's 18? Or 36 if you include the symetrical ones. So am I missing one particle? Or are the theories talking about something different.

I can see that my book mentions the graviton, which isn't in the standard model, so maybe that's the difference?

Thanks!

 

[Orodruin]

How many particles you get depends on exactly what you decide to count as one particle. For example, I assume you counted Z and W as different particles. Why then did you not count 8 gluons? This is something subjective and therefore not a very relevant part of how science is done.