What are protons, neutrons and electrons made up of?
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Leptons
Gauge Bosons
Leptons are the particles that do not make up matter, in fact they pass through matter.
This particle group consists of particles exchanging W and Z bosons, but that is unimportant regarding answering the question as to what protons, neutrons and electrons are made up of. Leptons consist of charged particles (electron like leptons) and neutral particles (neutrinos). The electron and the electron neutrino make up the 'normal' particles in the universe (normal being not dark matter etc). The only lepton relevant to this topic is the electron, which is in fact believed to be an elementary particle.
Gauge bosons are particles that carry the fundamental forces and are responsible for the interactions between the particles of the standard model. Elementary particles interact with each other through an exchange of Gauge Bosons. An example would be Leptons that exchange W and Z bosons. Gauge bosons carry the strong force, the electromagnetic force and the weak force. No gauge bosons have been discovered that carry the gravitational force, due to gravity being so weak in comparison to the other 3 fundamental forces, which makes it hard to do sufficient research on it.
Quarks
All quarks experience the strong nuclear force and this separates them from the leptons, which do not feel the strong nuclear force. Quarks bond together to make hadrons (eg protons). Hadrons can further be split into baryons and mesons. Examples of baryons are protons and neutrons. Baryons consist of three quarks. For example, a proton consists of two up quarks and one down quark. Each quark's charge will add up to the total charge of the Baryon.
Quarks
Fermions
All matter is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons and neutrons are made up of even smaller particles, these are called quarks. Quarks are the only things that interact using the strong nuclear force. Scientists chose strange names for the six quarks, and even weirder, the six different types of quarks are referred to as the six 'flavours' of quarks. The six flavours are:
Up (u) Charmed (c) Down (d)
Bottom (b) Strange (s) Top (t)
Anti quarks are also theorized as every particle is believed to have a counterpart. Therefore it can be stated that there are 12 quarks. The charges are shown in the table.
Fermions are the particles of the standard model that make up all matter. Fermions are further divided into two groups of particles called hadrons and leptons. The particles tend to overlap and it becomes complicated so the information will be basic to reduce confusion. The diagrams below show how the particles can overlap into different groups and how they consist of one another.
The up and down quarks have different charges, different masses and different spins. The up and down quarks are the most common quarks and are the most stable. The up and down quarks were named based on components of their spin, strange quarks were given the name strange because they were observed in particle decays that had slightly longer lifetimes than usual, charm was given the name because of the way it fascinated the physicists at the time and bottom and top quarks were given those names because they were the logical counterparts to the up and down quarks.
The standard model
The standard model consists of two types of particles: Fermions, which make up all matter and gauge bosons, which meditate the interactions between particles
Neutrons
Electrons orbit the nucleus in shells. Protons
and neutrons are made up of particles from
the standard model, whereas the
composition of electrons is yet
to be discovered.
Neutrons are neutrally charged particles found in the nucleus of atoms and are made up of quarks, thus they are hadrons, like Protons. Neutrons have no charge, therefore they consist of two down quarks and one up quark to achieve an overall neutral charge. Neutrons contribute to the atomic mass of an atom and also are responsible for isotopes of an element. As the amount of neutrons increase, the element still stays the same, it just has increased weight. Neutrons are slightly heavier than protons.
Electrons
The standard model
Introduction
Electrons are particles that carry a -1 charge and orbit the nucleus of an atom. Electrons are responsible for chemical reactions, electricity and more. They are extremely small particles in comparison to the proton and neutron and thus do not have impact on the relative atomic mass of an atom. Electrons however, as of now, are elementary particles as scientists have not discovered what they are made up of.
"The Standard Model explains how the basic building blocks of matter interact, governed by four fundamental forces" - CERN
The standard model is a group of particles that make up all matter in the universe and explain how they interact. The four fundamental forces influence how they interact.
To understand what protons, neutrons and electrons are composed of, a basic understanding of the standard model needs to be obtained.
The standard model consists of elementary particles or fundamental particles, meaning it's substance is unknown. Scientists don't know if they are composed of even smaller particles or not. The particles are affected by three of the four fundamental forces, being the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force. Gravity's interactions with the standard model has not been discovered yet as gravity is very weak compared to the other forces so experimenting with it is harder.
If we consider the Strong nuclear force to be unity then the strength of the other forces as compared to it would be
Discovering new particles
Throughout the history of mankind, scientists and researchers always attempted to find out what things were made up of. Modern day scientists are still attempting to discover what actual particles are the building blocks of everything in the universe and everything we know. This topic is extremely significant as discovering the most basic particles in existence may help answer many other questions in our world and also because this topic has been researched for many, many years. The world is constantly learning and new technology is always developing so scientists continue to learn more and more about what things are made up of. This presentation will look into what protons, neutrons and electrons are made up of. These particles make up atoms which make up all matter.
For decades, scientists have researched and further discovered new particles. In the past years, scientists have began building particle accelerators where they can accelerate particles to very fast speeds and conduct experiments with them. There are many particle accelerators all around the world, some collide particles, some do other things. Some find particles of the standard model, some create new elements. Scientists are only limited by their imagination with science and technology constantly developing and becoming better. Continuing the research is crucial to the development of mankind as there are many questions to answer, spaning from the big bang to the future. The possibilities are endless.
Protons
Discovering particles: The Higgs Boson
On the 4th of July in 2012, the large detector at CERN, called ATLAS had found a new particle. This was the higgs boson that is part of the standard model. This great achievement is one of many, and there are many more to come. The discovery of the higgs boson opens doors in physics and science because it shows that there is more and more to learn.
Protons are particles that are found in the nucleus of atoms and carry a positive charge. The number of protons in an atom determines the atomic number, which tells us what element the atom is. The number of protons is represented by the letter Z.
Protons are slightly lighter than Neutrons, but they also contribute to the atomic mass of an element. If the number of protons change however, the whole element changes.
What make up protons?
References
Conclusion
Protons are made up of quarks, which means that they are hadrons.
They carry a positive 1 charge so therefore they consist of two up quarks and one down quark to obtain a charge of 1.
This is a proton which consists of three quarks
There are two up quarks which have the letter 'u' and one down quark which has the letter 'd'. The forces between the quarks are meditated by gluons.
To conclude, it is very clear that the discovery of new particles is extremely significant to mankind and our knowledge of everything. Working towards making the standard model and finding all of the particles in it is extremely significant. Question everything, our imagination is our limit.
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