diff --git a/chapter/antimatter.html b/chapter/antimatter.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ebdbbe --- /dev/null +++ b/chapter/antimatter.html @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Antimatter +Every particle[ref] that we have met so far has a corresponding anti-particle. These antiparticles have exactly the same mass[ref] as the particle, but opposite charge[ref], and their lifetime and stability are the same. When a particle, for example the electron, meets its antiparticle, an anti-electron (or positron), they will annihilate each other. This means that both particles disappear and produce a huge amount of energy[ref]. This annihilation will only occur when an antiparticle meets its matching partner. For example, an antimuon will not annihilate with an electron. However, because there is a lot more matter in our universe than antimatter, it is much more likely for an antiparticle to find its partner very quickly and annihilate. Hence, we do not see antiparticles very often in our universe. diff --git a/chapter/strong_interactions.html b/chapter/strong_interactions.html deleted file mode 100644 index 341a017..0000000 --- a/chapter/strong_interactions.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8 +0,0 @@ -Strong interactions -There must be some kind of force that glues together the quarks in the proton, just like the -electromagnetic force attaches the electron to the atomic nucleus. And like for electromagnetism, -there must be messenger particle of this force, and also a kind of “charge”, called color, that will -determine which particles take part in this interaction and whether two particles will attract or -repel each other. This force is very different from electromagnetism: no particle that has a color -can exist freely, they must be in a bound system. The messenger particles of this interaction are -called gluons, and they themselves carry color, so they cannot exist freely either. diff --git a/chapter/the_electromagnetic_interaction.html b/chapter/the_electromagnetic_interaction.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7865f19 --- /dev/null +++ b/chapter/the_electromagnetic_interaction.html @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +The Electromagnetic Interaction + + +The electromagnetic force is the force affecting electrically charged particles. This is the force that keeps the electrons close to the nucleus of an atom. How do the charged particles communicate with each other? They exchange a certain type of particle, called the photon. This is the same particle that makes up light! Visible light, X-rays, microwaves and radio waves are all photons, with different energies. + diff --git a/chapter/the_higgs.html b/chapter/the_higgs.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04f4a9b --- /dev/null +++ b/chapter/the_higgs.html @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +The Higgs + + +On July 4th 2012, the two LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS announced the discovery of a new boson, which is likely to be the Higgs boson. It has been the missing piece of the Standard Model for many years, and its discovery is one of the most amazing successes of physics. In this chapter, we will explain the Higgs mechanism, that gives mass to all the particles we know by now. diff --git a/chapter/the_strong_interaction.html b/chapter/the_strong_interaction.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f67b606 --- /dev/null +++ b/chapter/the_strong_interaction.html @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +Strong interactions +There must be some kind of force that glues together the quarks in the proton, just like the electromagnetic force attaches the electron to the atomic nucleus. And like for electromagnetism, there must be messenger particle of this force, and also a kind of “charge”, called color, that will determine which particles take part in this interaction and whether two particles will attract or repel each other. This force is very different from electromagnetism: no particle that has a color can exist freely, they must be in a bound system. The messenger particles of this interaction are called gluons, and they themselves carry color, so they cannot exist freely either. + + +Looking at the proton, we see that there are three quarks glued together - unlike in the hydrogen atom, where there are only two partners: the proton and the electron. Hence, something must be different about this strong, nuclear force, that glues together the quarks. There are three different kinds of “charge”, as opposed to electromagnetism, where there are only two, which we call positive and negative. For the strong force, the “charge” is called color. diff --git a/chapter/the_weak_interaction.html b/chapter/the_weak_interaction.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1167c6e --- /dev/null +++ b/chapter/the_weak_interaction.html @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Nuclear decay and the weak interaction +Some nuclear decays cannot be explained with only the strong and the electromagnetic interactions, another interaction is required. These decays are called beta decays (β-decay), and turn a neutron into a proton (or the other way around) and emit an electron and a new particle, the neutrino [or a positron (an antielectron)]. They are rare and very different from the other types of decays, which is the reason that we need the new force to explain them, the weak force. This force has the Z and W bosons as messenger particles, these differ from the other messenger particles in that they have a mass, they are in fact very massive. diff --git a/chapter/three_generations.html b/chapter/three_generations.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88f8552 --- /dev/null +++ b/chapter/three_generations.html @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +The Three Generations of Matter +So far we have met the particles that make up most of the matter we see all around us – the up quark, the down quark and the electron. We have also met the electron neutrino, which is emitted during radioactive decay. It seems like these four particles, along with the particles that carry forces, are enough to explain everything. + + +It turns out that each of the matter particles has two “big brothers” – new particles that are identical except for their larger mass. Physicists talk about “three generations” (sometimes called families instead) of matter. The first generation is the particles we have met already. The second generation contains the charm quark (the big brother of the up quark), the strange quark (the big brother of the down quark), the muon (the big brother of the electron) and the muon neutrino (the big brother of the electron neutrino). The third generation is the top quark, the bottom quark (this is sometimes also called the beauty quark), the tau lepton and the tau neutrino.