Charm,strange,up,down (particles)etc

[geordief]

What is the lowdown  on this area of physics?

These characteristics are not supposed to make any sense to the layman and especially not to mean what they sound like.

Is there any point for this wannabe layman to want to have an inkling(another fine word;-)  ) of what these properties might actually represent or perhaps how they are measured?

 

Not chapter and verse , just  a minimal outline perhaps.

 

[Strange]

They are just names for different types of quarks. They don't mean anything. They could have been Tom, Dick and Harry, etc. (Bottom was originally Beauty).

There are two groups of three (groups of three seem to be important for some reason).

If you haven't seen it, the Wikipedia page has a nice table summarising all the particles in the standard model:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_particle

[geordief]

26 minutes ago, geordief said:

Thanks.Apology for the lazy post.

I  must have been thinking of "spin" and imagining there were a small number of other properties similar to "spin".

I will look at the Wiki page though .....

 

Edited November 30, 2017 by geordief

[Strange]

Quarks do have "colour charge" which is analogous to electric charge but has three possible values (red, green and blue) which can be positive or negative. Note that the names are, again, completely arbitrary - they just wanted something that came in threes - and has absolutely nothing to do with colour!

[Vmedvil]

The Three generations(I,II,III) are caused from change in Flavour of the particles each being more Rest massive then the last in that direction, but being identical in every other property to their lesser cousins. 

These Particles higher level particles are also much more unstable then their lesser cousins having a very short half-life before decay into lesser particles.

Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with Taste, Vmedvil is not responsible for death via tasting higher level states of flavour in particles.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Vmedvil

[Mordred]

Flavor being the workforce interactions which provides the connection to the Higgs seesaw mechanism 

[Sensei]

On 30.11.2017 at 12:31 AM, geordief said:

Is there any point for this wannabe layman to want to have an inkling(another fine word;-)  ) of what these properties might actually represent or perhaps how they are measured?

 

1) charge of particles prior decay is equal to charge of particles after decay.

2) energy of particles prior decay is equal to energy of particles after decay. Some rest-mass of particles can change to relativistic-mass of particles, and they start to travel at relativistic velocities.

3) particle with larger rest-mass decays to particle with smaller rest-mass.

For example:

[math]\pi^+ \rightarrow \pi^0 + e^+ + v_e[/math]

Charged pion has larger rest-mass than neutral pion. 139.57 MeV/c^2 is larger than 135 MeV/c^2.

(spontaneous decay of neutral pion to pion+ or pion- is forbidden)

[math]K^+ \rightarrow \pi^+ + \pi^+ + \pi^-[/math]

[math]K^+ \rightarrow \pi^+ + \pi^0[/math]

[math]K^- \rightarrow \pi^- + \pi^+ + \pi^-[/math]

[math]K^- \rightarrow \pi^- + \pi^0[/math]

Kaon has larger rest-mass than three pions, either charged and neutral.

[math]\rho^0 \rightarrow \pi^+ + \pi^-[/math]

Rho meson has rest-mass 775.49 MeV/c^2, one charged kaon has 493.667 MeV/c^2...  2 * rest-mass of kaon is more than rest-mass of rho meson.

[math]\phi^0 \rightarrow K^+ + K^-[/math]

Phi meson has rest-mass 1019.445 MeV/c^2, 2 * rest-mass of kaon is smaller than rest-mass of phi meson, therefore phi can decay to two kaons.

 

 

Charge and rest-mass can be measured in Cloud Chamber, Bubble Chamber, or other particle detector, when charged particle pass through medium, leaving trace. The longer trace, the larger energy had particle. If trace is splitting to two or more traces, it means particle decayed.

External electric and external magnetic field is used to bend traces, so they go in circles, prior particle will decay.. Number of circles, curvature of circle is used to calculate mass-to-charge ratio.

Edited December 3, 2017 by Sensei