Concept
Elementary particle
Overview
In the Standard Model of particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. The Standard Model recognizes seventeen distinct particles—twelve fermions and five bosons. As a consequence of flavor and color combinations and antimatter, the fermions and bosons are known to have 48 and 13 variations, respectively. These 61 elementary particles include electrons and other leptons, quarks, and the fundamental bosons. Subatomic particles such as protons or neutrons, which contain two or more elementary particles, are known as composite particles.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Even instincts vary from one individual to another of a kind; and are modified in the same individual, as we shall later see, to suit the exigencies of the case. The habits of an elementary particle of matter cannot change (on the principles of the atomistic philosophy), because the particle is itself an unchangeable thing; but those of a compound mass of matter can change, because they are in the last instance due…
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1
States what Elementary particle is; names Elementary particle.
The elementary particles of the animal, being thus dissolved, disunited, and dispersed; assume new activity, and form new combinations: thus, they serve to nourish, to preserve, or destroy new beings; among others, plants, which arrived at their maturity, nourish and preserve new animals; these in their turn yielding to the same fate as the first. Such is the constant, the invariable course, of Nature; such is the…
Paul Henri Thiry Holbach, The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 1
Opens on Elementary particle; names Elementary particle.
There is still a resource; the ultimate elements of bodies are electrons, some charged negatively, the others charged positively. The negative electrons have no mass, this is understood; but the positive electrons, from the little we know of them, seem much greater. Perhaps they have, besides their electrodynamic mass, a true mechanical mass.
Henri Poincaré, The Foundations of Science
States what Elementary particle is.
Philosophers who discussed Elementary particle
Related ideas
- Addison-Wesley
- World Scientific
- General relativity
- Springer Science+Business Media
- Integer
- Ad hoc
- Mass
- The Guardian
- Molecule
- Dark energy
- Matter
- Atomic nucleus
- Subatomic particle
- Particle physics
- Photon
- Quark
- Quantum mechanics
- De rerum natura
- Scientific American
- Uncertainty principle
- Gravity
- Mass–energy equivalence
- Standard Model
- Oxford University Press
Place in the tradition
Part of Atomism.