Abstract
In this chapter the elementary particles from which all things are made are presented together with the interactions which bring them together. The latter are transmitted by indivisible particle-like entities. The so-called Feynman diagrams describing the various interactions are introduced.
If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what a statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms–little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.
R.P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
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Notes
- 1.
m stands for matter.
- 2.
It turns out that interactions are actually transmitted through indivisible elementary quantities to be named here (for distinguishing them from the m-particles) interaction-carrier-particles (ic-particles). The ic-particles, in addition to mediating forces, are capable of making certain transformations of the m-particles among each other; thus the indestructibility of elementary m- or ic-particles is of questionable validity.
- 3.
Spin times the universal constant \( \hbar \) (\( \hbar = 1.0545716 \times 10^{ - 34} \,{\text{J}} \cdot {\text{s}} \)) gives the intrinsic angular momentum of each m-particle or ic-particle.
- 4.
Composite entities consisting of three quarks are called baryons.
- 5.
Mesons are composite entities consisting of one quark and one antiquark. Baryons and mesons are collectively called hadrons.
- 6.
The medical diagnostic method known as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is based on the introduction of positrons which, subsequently, by meeting electrons annihilate giving rise to two photons of opposite direction and the same energy each (equal to the rest mass of electrons, 0.51 \( {\text{MeV}} \)).
- 7.
There are some rare processes which violate this last statement; e.g. an e-neutrino may change to an μ-neutrino and vice versa.
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© 2011 Eleftherios N. Economou
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Economou, E.N. (2011). The Atomic Idea. In: A Short Journey from Quarks to the Universe. SpringerBriefs in Physics, vol 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20089-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20089-2_2
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