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RE: A crash course on particle physics to get prepared for the steemSTEM meetup at CERN - 1 - the structure of matter
well, at least I understand what I am missing so far.
well, at least I understand what I am missing so far.
Cool! That is one of the goal of this series: making what is going on comprehensive for non physicists :)
I have got a little background in chemistry and math (LK an der Schule und ein-zwei Semester an der Uni :D), so this is not an all too frightening area of science to me. So far we got 2 quarks forming neutrons and protons, 1 neutrino that is created in a specific form of radioactive decay and the good old familar electron. All four of them in 3 different weight classes, so far so good, when do we start with the hard stuff? :P
In my next post (in a couple of days, probably), I will start discussing how those guys interact with each other and what are gauge symmetries (in a couple of words, no fancy details). And of course, I may introduce the Higgs. Depending on how long the post get (I try not to be above 1500 words), the Higgs may be left over for a third post.
Do the particles in the same column have the same mass btw?
No, all masses are different. Excepted neutrinos, each mass is a free parameter of the model that has to be tuned according to measurements. They have all been found different. In the Standard Model, neutrinos are massless. This contradicts data. You can check my answer to the comment of @nonationnoborder for more information with this respect.