What Particles Do Educators and Students Worldwide Favor?

[fresh_42]

Abstract. We have conducted a large-scale international study with high-school teachers (N=530) and high-school students (N=959) from all around the world to investigate and document what they consider as their favourite particles. We found five particles to be highly prominent in both groups, namely the Higgs boson, the neutrino, the electron, the photon and the gluon. Moreover, we did not find any significant differences with regard to the teachers’ and students’ nationality or gender. In this article, we present our findings in detail and give insight into the teachers’ and students’ justifications of why they chose a specific parti

I'm curious whether we can confirm that hadrons don't like hadrons?

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1512/1/012021

 

[bhobba]

Electron because when I was young I lived and breathed electronics. I still am into it a bit because I am now an audiophile nut into small makers that I can discuss technical stuff with.

Thanks
Bill

 

[berkeman]

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1512/1/012021

LOL. I was thinking how impressive it was that random high school students and teachers would even know accurately what elementary particles there are, let alone have a favorite one. Then I saw this in the article... (no wonder these "random" subjects knew so much)...

3.Methods

Every year, CERN offers international programmes for both high-school teachers and high-school students. Among them are the International High School Teacher Programme and the International Teacher Weeks Programme, which are professional development programmes directed at in-service high-school science teachers from all around the world [7]. In addition, CERN’s hands-on learning laboratory, S’Cool LAB [8], offers the S’Cool LAB summercamp, which is designed for 16-19 year-old high-school students from all around the world.

For these three programmes, interested candidates have to fill out and submit an extensive application form, which contains both open-ended and closed-ended questions. In addition, applicants need to provide a short video to present themselves and explain why they are the ideal candidate to take part in the respective programme. Indeed, every year, we receive hundreds of applications from highly motivated high-school teachers and high-school students for CERN’s international programmes. Thus, we decided to make use of this diverse pool of self-selected high-school teachers and high-school students and to use part of the application process for our physics education research.

 

[chemisttree]

Every organic chemist I know “pushes” electrons here and there. It’s all about the electrons.

 

[jtbell]

My favorite is one that doesn't actually exist. It was "discovered" (about the time I started working in experimental particle physics as a grad student) by a group at Fermilab headed by Leon Lederman, which gave it the name "upsilon". They later retracted their announcement, and the "particle" became known as the "Oops-Leon".

 

[rsk]

What an odd but interesting thing to research!

 

[PeroK]

I would have thought that science geeks would have some empathy for the strange quark. Perhaps no one wants to admit it.

 

[rsk]

I would have thought that science geeks would have some empathy for the strange quark. Perhaps no one wants to admit it.

Strange was my thought, because of the reaction it gets from students when they learn of its existence. That and gluon. They look at you like they can't work out whether you're kidding them or not.

 

[Ibix]

I would have thought that science geeks would have some empathy for the strange quark.

Truth, man, truth.

 

[DennisN]

I would also choose the electron, partly for nostalgic reasons.
I still remember being shown an electron diffraction experiment in high school a long time ago, and it made a big impression on me.
It was somewhat like this:

 

[Klystron]

My choice of favorite particle: electron.

Yes, for youthful nostalgia. Yes, from adult experience with electromagnetism (EM).
Yes, from professional interest in electronics and EM fields.

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Electrons are so cool that, if they were not elementary particles, they would wear sunglasses.

 

[George Jones]

The St. Valentine's Day monopole, though I'm somewhat Blas(é) about it.

 

[256bits]

I don't really have a favorite, but I would have to guess that for a cow, it is the muon.

 

[DrGreg]

I don't really have a favorite, but I would have to guess that for a cow, it is the muon.

Shouldn't that be a cat, not a cow?