The search for the fundamental

What is the world made of?

Even in ancient times, people have come to realize that the matter of the world is
made from few fundamental elements such as earth, air, fire and water.

Around 1900, people thought atoms as fundamental element.

Through experiments scientists determined that atoms have a positive nucleus

and a cloud of negative electrons [‘atomon’ – cannot be divided].

Nucleus was made up of protons which are positively charged and neutrons
which have no charge.

Physicist have discovered that protons and neutrons are composed of even
smaller particles called quarks.

The Modern Atomic Model

The Standard Model

All the known particles are composites of 6 quarks and 6 leptons and they
interact by exchanging force carriers particles.

Quarks behave differently than leptons and for each kind of matter particle there
is a corresponding antimatter particle.
Matter and Antimatter
For every type of matter particle, there also exists corresponding antimatter
particle. Antiparticles look and behave just like their corresponding matter
particle, except they have opposite charges. Gravity affects matter and antimatter
the same way because gravity is not a charged property and a matter particle has
the same mass as its antiparticle.

Quarks
Six quarks can be given in three pairs, up/down, charm/strange, top/bottom.
Also for each of these quarks, there is a corresponding antiquark. Quarks have
unusual characteristic of having a fractional charge.

Hadrons, Baryons and Mesons

Quarks only exists in groups with the other quarks and are never found alone.
Composite particles made of quarks are called hadrons. Hardrons have net
integer electric charge. Baryons are hadrons which is made of thee quarks.

Ex: Protons : uud

Neutrons : udd

Mesons contain one quark and one antiquark

Ex: π+ (pion) is made up of an up quark and a down antiquark [u,d́ ]

π- (antipion) = [d́ ,ú]

2
MRS. H. MARIE F. SILVA
BSc, Dip. in Edu., MSc. In Phy. Edu.
Leptons
The other type of matter particles are the leptons. There are six leptons. Three of
which have electrical charge and there of which do not. The best known lepton is
the (e-). The other charged leptons are the muon (µ) and tau (τ ), which are
charged like electrons but have a lot more mass. The other leptons are the three
types of neutrinos (γ ). They have no electrical charge, very little mass and they
are very hard to find. Leptons are solitary particles. For each lepton there is a
corresponding antilepton.

3
MRS. H. MARIE F. SILVA
BSc, Dip. in Edu., MSc. In Phy. Edu.