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Elementary Particles
Elementary particle
In
particle physics, an elementary particle refers to a
particle of which other, larger particles are composed. For example,
atoms
are made up of smaller particles known as
electrons,
protons, and
neutrons. The proton and neutron, in turn, are composed of more elementary
particles known as
quarks. One of the outstanding problems of particle physics is to find the
most elementary particles - or the so-called fundamental particles
- which make up all the other particles found in Nature, and are not themselves
made up of smaller particles.
The
Standard Model of particle physics contains 12 species of elementary
fermions ("matter
particles") and 12 species of elementary
bosons ("radiation
particles"), plus their corresponding
antiparticles. However, the Standard Model is widely considered to be a
provisional theory rather than a truly fundamental one, and it is possible that
some or all of its "elementary" particles are actually composite particles.
There might also be other elementary particles not described by the Standard
Model, the most prominent being the
graviton, the hypothetical particle that carryies the
gravitational force.
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