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    "The Standard Model of Particle Interactions, the basic building blocks of matter are six leptons and six quarks that interact by means of force-carrying particles called bosons. Every phenomenon (almost) observed in nature can be understood as the interplay of the fundamental particles and forces of the Standard Model. But physicists know that the Standard Model does not tell the whole story, and they are searching for physics beyond the Standard Model that will lead to a larger, more elegant "theory of everything."  -FERMI LAB
 
 
 
 
 

    "For the past 25 years, its predictions have matched experimental data, decimal place for decimal place, with amazing precision. The Standard Model has been poked at with everything from desktop experiments to huge particle accelerators, and it has yet to break. But break it must." –David Kestenbaum, experimental physicist and science writer, in FermiNews.
 

   The theories and discoveries of thousands of physicists over the past century have created a remarkable—and remarkably accurate —picture of the fundamental structure of matter, the Standard Model of Particles and Forces.
    The Standard Model describes four forces, transmitted by elementary particles: the photon transmits the electromagnetic force; the gluon carries the strong nuclear force that holds the atom's nucleus together, and the W and Z bosons transmit the weak force that acts in radioactive decay.
    The fundamental particles of matter are leptons, such as the familiar electron, and quarks, like those found inside the proton and neutron. Each elementary particle of matter also has an antimatter partner. For example, the positron is the antimatter counterpart of the electron, and every quark has an antiquark.
    Every phenomenon observed in nature can be understood as the interplay of the fundamental forces and particles of the Standard Model.
    But physicists know that the Standard Model is not the end of the story. It does not account for gravity. And it raises almost as many questions as it answers. Today physicists are searching for physics beyond the Standard Model that will lead them to a larger, more elegant theory—a "theory of everything."
    Because the standard model embraces so much, from particle relations in quantum electrodynamics to the dark matter of cosmology, some times with good success and other times not such good success, the results and principles of quantum mechanics is a good place to start.
    In particle relations, or what is called particle statistics derive from quantum principles, one should be aware of spin and, as I mentioned, statistics.
    In this adjoining illustration (Courtesy Scientific American, Elementary Particles by Murray Gell-Mann and E.P. Rosenbaum, July 1957, pg. 72, we see the significance of spin for particles within a magnetic field.  Particles which align themselves in line to the magnetic field, such as the electron(e), proton(r) and neutron(h ), have 1/2 spin.  Particles with a spin = 1, such as a photon (g) can go with, across or against the field.
    In this thesis, we start with the field and a simple wave (l) moving through the field.  If this field, consisting of surfaces packed at a density of 2.54 x 10³⁷ surfaces per cubic centimeter, is purely disorganized and random, simple waves follow a rectilinear path, though microscopically zig-zagged from surface to surface.  If the field is twisted between magnetic poles, no variation of their orientation can be caused to occur, hence, in statistical terms, a simple wave would have a spin of one.  In all due respect then, a simple wave might be a photon counterpart, especially in the light, that neither should have an anti-particle, which is completely in agreement to the expectations of field theory, unlike quantum electrodynamics, which incorrectly predicts the presence of an anti photon, of which there are none found in nature.
    At this fundamental level, one should be acutely aware that though quantum mechanics provides an exceptional accurate basis for particle predictions, it also tends to not only apparently flounder badly when it comes to protons decaying into photons, yielding considerable mathematical error, but also violates the Law of the Conservation of Energy by insisting that spontaneous photon emissions occur so quickly, that the observer's instruments cannot and should not be expected to catch energy changes commensurate to these emissions.  Accordingly, with this little hitch, quantum theory presses for the acceptance of the "virtual emission", presumably as some standard model escape clause.
    Notably, there are no virtual activities within this field theory.  A simple wave, aka., photon/neutrino (l = g = n), being not so much energy, as it is unabated motion, is actively involved at any and all moments during field activities and relations.  In this regard, field theory doggedly adheres to the Principle of the Conservation of Energy, not so much in particle terms, such as momentum, but in the unabated presence of motion, which is what a simple wave is.
    Within this field scheme, there is no necessity for the neutrino (n), which Pauli suggested might carry of missing energy in the beta decay of a neutron, weighing in at 1,838.6, into a proton weighing in at 1,836.1, and electron with zero mass.  Being that mass, in the most general sense, is the degree of field distortion associated to a given quanta or particle, mass is not a constant variable intrinsic to particles, and thus something to be accounted for in terms of mass invariance and subsequently derived principles of this notion unique to particle theory.
    Completely out-of-bounds for field theory, is the pion, normally being neutral or negative, and neutral and positive in the anti-world, so what in the world is it?  It follows the Fermi-Dirac process, so it is a fermion, or is that the Fermi-Yukawa process, making it a meson, both loaded with mass of about 270 electron masses.  Because the mass transferred in this process is only of rest mass equivalency, the energy transference and force conveyance, must occur instantaneously and without observable trace, the process is a virtual transaction.
    In the adjacent illustration, a negative pion (p^-), permitted in our real world, slams into a proton (p), which becomes a neutral K particle (K⁰).  Their point of collision is marked with a question mark.   What is hard to see in this liquid propane chamber photo, is a vertically descending negative pion following a slightly curving arc to the left, indicating the presence of a magnetic field permeating the chamber.  Since the chamber is being bombarded (from above in the plate) by a swarm of pions produced in the Cosmotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory, all of them take gentle clockwise arcs, either passing through, or striking the target nuclei, in this case a proton sitting at rest.  Since the exact identity of the pion, and all pions being produced, is uncertain, and since pions have no business being part of field theory, what if a pion were strictly a field configuration consisting of an outside-shelled spiral, consistent of an electron, providing it one electron charge, plus two outer orbiting simple waves giving it some mass greater than the electron and substantially less than a nucleon, but without additional charge?
    In this field thesis, it is all quite possible, but what really is the electron counterpart?  Is it a simple wave on one plane of orbit, or two or three simple waves following more or less orthogonal orbits?  If an electron were merely a simple wave in orbit, essentially being no different than a photon or a neutrino in orbit, the universe might be perversely flat at the microcosmic level.  In any event, if the two got tangled up, the proton and pion counterparts, a certain amount of field unwinding and the re-establishment of new decay products (other field configurations) should happen.
    What is quite intriguing, the four fundamental particles initially discovered; the electron, proton, neutron and photon, perfectly match in attributes of mass, spin and charge, to those of the most likely field configurations consisting of an outside-shelled spiral configuration, an oppositely directed inside-shelled configuration, and dual wave radial configuration and the simple wave, respectively.
    Unlike particle theory requiring the theoretical admission of force carriers, such as gluons for nuclear forces, and the illusive or missing entirely, Higgs boson, thus representing the force carrier for gravity, field theory follows an entirely different set of principles.  In understanding the geometric impulses belonging to field theory, along with a few other logical mechanisms, it becomes doubtful that the new Standard Model II (field theory), will ever confirm or conform to the twelve to sixteen building blocks of Standard Model I (the old particle model).
    As seemingly entrenched the modern scientific institutional consensus has become as proponent to the Standard Model I, is not the only player in the field.

The building blocks

Physicists have identified 12 building blocks that are the fundamental constituents of matter. Our everyday world is made of just three of these building blocks: the up quark, the down quark and the electron. This set of particles is all that's needed to make protons and neutrons and to form atoms and molecules. The electron neutrino, observed in the decay of other particles, completes the first set of four building blocks.

For some reason nature has elected to replicate this first generation of quarks and leptons to produce a total of six quarks and six leptons, with increasing mass. Like all quarks, the sixth quark, named top, is much smaller than a proton (in fact, no one knows how small quarks are), but the top is as heavy as a gold atom!

Although there are reasons to believe that there are no more sets of quarks and leptons, theorists speculate that there may be other types of building blocks, which may partly account for the dark matter implied by astrophysical observations. This poorly understood matter exerts gravitational forces and manipulates galaxies. It will take earth-based accelerator experiments to identify its fabric.

The building blocks of nature (video, 6 min.)

The forces

Scientists distinguish four elementary types of forces acting among particles: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational force.

• The strong force is responsible for quarks “sticking” together to form protons, neutrons and related particles.
• The electromagnetic force binds electrons to atomic nuclei (clusters of protons and neutrons) to form atoms.
• The weak force facilitates the decay of heavy particles into smaller sibblings.

The gravitational force acts between massive objects. Although it plays no role at the microscopic level, it is the dominant force in our everyday life and throughout the universe.

Particles transmit forces among each other by exchanging force-carrying particles called bosons. These force mediators carry discrete amounts of energy, called quanta, from one particle to another. You could think of the energy transfer due to boson exchange as something like the passing of a basketball between two players.

Each force has its own characteristic bosons:

• The gluon mediates the strong force; it “glues” quarks together.
• The photon carries the electromagnetic force; it also transmits light.NC
• The W and Z bosons represent the weak force; they introduce different types of decays.
Physicists expect that the gravitational force may also be associated with a boson particle. Named the graviton, this hypothetical boson is extremely hard to observe since, at the subatomic level, the gravitational force is many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three elementary forces.

Table of particle discoveries: who, when, where? NC

Antimatter

Although it is a staple of science fiction, antimatter is as real as matter. For every particle, physicists have discovered a corresponding antiparticle, which looks and behaves in almost the same way. Antiparticles, though, have the opposite properties of their corresponding particles. An antiproton, for example, has a negative electric charge while a proton is positively charged.

Less than 10 years ago, physicists at CERN (1995) and Fermilab (1996)NOT CONNECTED) created the first anti-atoms. To learn more about the properties of the "Mirror World," they carefully added a positron (the antiparticle of an electron) to an antiproton. The result: antihydrogen.

Storing antimatter is a difficult task. As soon as an antiparticle and a particle meet, they annihilate, disappearing in a flash of energy. Using electromagnetic force fields, physicists are able to store antimatter inside vacuum vessels for a limited amount of time.

Physicists call the theoretical framework that describes the interactions between elementary building blocks (quarks and leptons) and the force carriers (bosons) the Standard Model. Gravity is not yet part of this framework, and a central question of 21st century particle physics is the search for a quantum formulation of gravity that could be included in the Standard Model.

Though still called a model, the Standard Model is a fundamental and well-tested physics theory. Physicists use it to explain and calculate a vast variety of particle interactions and quantum phenomena. High-precision experiments have repeatedly verified subtle effects predicted by the Standard Model.

So far, the biggest success of the Standard Model is the unification of the electromagnetic and the weak forces into the so-called electroweak force(NOT CONNECTED). The consolidation is a milestone comparable to the unification of the electric and the magnetic forces into a single electromagnetic theory(NOT CONNECTED) by J.C. Maxwell in the 19th century. Physicists think it is possible to describe all forces with a Grand Unified Theory. (NOT CONNECTED)

One essential ingredient of the Standard Model, however, still eludes experimental verification: the Higgs field. It interacts with other particles to give them mass. The Higgs field gives rise to a new force carrier, called the Higgs boson, which has not been observed. Failure to find it would call into question the Standard Model. Experimenters at Fermilab hope to find evidence for the Higgs boson and make further discoveries in the next few years. (NOT CONNECTED)

Slide show on the building blocks of nature

Everything about neutrinos,electrons and light.

How to find the smallest particles (NOT CONNECTED)

Fermilab's research on elementary particles (NOT CONNECTED)

FULL VIEW CHART OF PARTICLE ASSOCIATIONS
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