🔄FROM THE ARCHIVE The totality of existence can be divided into these categories, each with a vital role in the structure of the universe.
Every single particle fits into one of just three classes, or kingdoms: bosons, fermions and anyons, the latter just discovered in the past year. You can think of these groups as akin to the taxonomic tiers of organic life, each as different from the others as plants are from animals and bacteria.
“It was a great advance to realize that different kinds of particles … actually have a unified description,” says Frank Wilczek, a Nobel prize-winning physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But this unification applies only to individual particles — as soon as you let two or more of them mingle, their collective conduct reveals a different subatomic division, between bosons and fermions.
Fermions — named for Italian physicist Enrico Fermi — on the other hand, are antisocial. They refuse to occupy the same quantum state, or, to extend the analogy, they don’t like to do the same thing. This is the essence of the Pauli exclusion principle, which finds its epitome in electrons. Because no two can exist in the same state, they are forced into the various shells around their atoms.
Bosons, on the other hand, are the “force-carrying” particles: the photons, the gluons, and the Z and W bosons. Fermions exchange these between each other to generate, respectively, the electromagnetic, strong and weak forces. . Lastly, the Higgs boson does not represent a force, per se, but it is what imbues the fermions with mass.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Could Jerry Seinfeld's Hallway Exist in the Real World?Generally speaking, this is an accurate depiction of the physical impossibilities of Jerry Seinfeld's apartment. However, there are a few caveats with respect to the hallway to consider.
Read more »
White Holes: Do Black Holes Have Mirror Images?🔄FROM THE ARCHIVE Whether white holes exist remains an open question.
Read more »
Tornado deaths in 2023 are already more than double last year′s totalAbout 60 people have died in tornadoes in 2023, two to three times higher than all of 2022, when 23 people died.
Read more »
Millennia Says Construction on Centennial Project Could Begin This Fall, Adjusts Total of Workforce ApartmentsMillennia says construction on Centennial project, the big renovation of the historic Union Trust building, could begin this fall. It also announced it cut the total of planned workforce apartment units in half
Read more »
Save the date: One year until total solar eclipse sweeps USJust one year from now, a total solar eclipse will sweep across North America
Read more »