What is Fermilab? - Run II Newscasts - Analyze the Data - Online Resources - Site Outline
By the 1970s, physicists had discovered hundreds of particles they called the "particle zoo." It was clear that there were too many basic particles; physicists like things to be simple. There must be a simpler model to make sense of it all: the Standard Model. This model, which emerged in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, explained the multiplicity of small particles in terms of a few categories:When theorists developed the Standard Model, not all of the basic particles which it described had been discovered. That is where Fermilab came in. . . .
- leptons, small point-like particles like the electron, the muon and the ghostly neutrino
- quarks, which combine to form hadrons, particles as familiar as the proton and as exotic as the omega-minus
- bosons, the exchange particles that carry interactions between two particles
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| Fermilab Discovery: | Bottom Quark |
Top Quark |
Tau Neutrino |
For further study . . . Discoveries at Fermilab - Particle Physics Timeline - Enrico Fermi - Links