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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

in #steemstem7 years ago

We have thus four elementary particles: the up quark, the down quark, the electron and the neutrino. This is what is called the first generation of elementary fermions.

Quite an elaborate explanation of quarks for me here. We were taught in high school that we had atoms and electrons as the most basics (indivisible) of substances. I suppose this still holds true since you were referring to even smaller units of matter when you wrote that sir. Excellent post!

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Depending on the energy scale you are interested in, you may just consider the atomic nucleus as a point-like object. When one reaches energies like at the LHC, this approximation does not hold anymore and we are really dealing with the atomic substructure.

I hope this answers your question :)