the.com/particle physics
Smashing things together to find out what reality is hiding inside.
means The branch of physics that studies the smallest known building blocks of matter and energy, and the forces through which they interact.
from 'Particle' traces back to Latin particula, a 'small part,' diminutive of pars ('part') — the same root that gives us 'party' and 'portion.' 'Physics' comes from Greek physis, meaning 'nature,' via phrases like ta physika, 'the things concerning nature,' the old label for Aristotle's writings on the natural world. The phrase 'particle physics' itself is modern, rising in the 20th century as physicists moved past atoms into the subatomic zoo of electrons, quarks, and bosons — small parts, indeed, but it turned out nature kept getting smaller the closer you looked.
- standard model
- explains everything except gravity, dark matter, dark energy
- higgs boson
- took 48 years between prediction and proof
- lhc speed
- protons hit 99.9999991 percent light speed
- neutrinos
- trillions pass through you every second, harmlessly