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Elementary Particles
Fermions - named after Mr. Fermi
Bosons - named after Mr. Bose
Quarks - named after curd cheese.
Quarks do not occur free but are always bound into Hadrons (see below).
Leptons - named after the Greek word for 'small' or 'thin'.
The famouselectron is a lepton.

Gluons - named after glue.
Gluons convey the strong nuclear force that binds quarks into compounds. There are 8 of them.
Photons - named after the Greek word for light.
Photons convey the electromagnetic force.
Weak bosons - named after the force they convey.
Weak bosons convey the weak nuclear force. There are 3 of them: W-, W+ & Z.
Gravitons - named after the Latin word for heaviness or weight.
Gravitons convey the gravitational force, a.k.a gravity.
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Hadrons - Quark Compounds of either 3 or 2 quarks
Baryons - made up of 3 quarks.
Mesons - made up of 2 quarks, namely 1 quark and its anti-quark.
Mesons are, obviously, highly unstable.
Protons - named after the Greek word proto, as the proton was the first discovered hadron.
Protons consist of 2 Up-quarks and 1 Down-quark, and are so stable that no proton decay has ever been observed. They exist many times longer than the present age of the universe.
Neutron - named after the Latin word neutralis, meaning to belong to neither, or simply neutral
Neutrons consist of 2 Down-quarks and 1 Up-quark, and are stable as long as they are incorporated in a nucleus. Let loose, they live about 12 minutes and then they decay. The famous electron is a lepton.
Many more Baryons exist, but they are made from quarks that are unstable themselves. These heavy Baryons occur very rarely in nature and when they do, they decay almost immediately after they were born. Heavy guys like this may come about in certain very violent cosmic events.
Pions
Positive pion = 1 Up-quark + 1 anti-Up.
Negative pion = 1 Down-quark + 1 anti-Down.



Many others


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