Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Particle physics. Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the study of combination of protons and neutrons is called nuclear physics.
Elementary-particle masses and the differences between electromagnetism (mediated by the photon) and the weak force (mediated by the W and Z bosons) are critical to many aspects of the structure of microscopic (and hence macroscopic) matter. In electroweak theory, the Higgs boson generates the masses of the leptons (electron, muon, and tau) and ...
String theory is a model of physics whereby all "particles" that make up matter are composed of strings (measuring at the Planck length) that exist in an 11-dimensional (according to M-theory, the leading version) or 12-dimensional (according to F-theory [17]) universe. These strings vibrate at different frequencies that determine mass ...
The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, [9][10] is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, [11][12] one of the fields in particle physics theory. [12] In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson with zero spin, even (positive ...
Wave-particle duality is the concept in quantum mechanics that quantum entities exhibit particle or wave properties according to the experimental circumstances. [1]: 59 It expresses the inability of the classical concepts such as particle or wave to fully describe the behavior of quantum objects. [2]: III:1-1 During the 19th and early 20th ...
In particle physics, a generation or family is a division of the elementary particles. Between generations, particles differ by their flavour quantum number and mass, but their electric and strong interactions are identical. There are three generations according to the Standard Model of particle physics. Each generation contains two types of ...
Quantum mechanics. Matter waves are a central part of the theory of quantum mechanics, being half of wave–particle duality. At all scales where measurements have been practical, matter exhibits wave -like behavior. For example, a beam of electrons can be diffracted just like a beam of light or a water wave.
The discovery of these particles required very different experimental methods from that of their ordinary matter counterparts, and provided evidence that all particles had antiparticles—an idea that is fundamental to quantum field theory, the modern mathematical framework for particle physics. In the case of most subsequent particle ...