Subatomic particles and atoms, conceptual illustration.
RICHARD JONES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
LOOK carefully sufficient and almost everything we all know of in the universe boils all the way down to a handful of elementary particles. These entities represent particular person threads of the scientific masterpiece that’s the standard mannequin of particle physics, our present finest image of matter and its workings.
Its roots lay in the quantum revolution early in the twentieth century, the place the classical, common sense notion that everything is predictable was unceremoniously thrown out. By distinction, the improvement of the standard mannequin was something however a revolution. Instead, it was extra like the gradual forming of a brand new order, constructed piece by piece by dozens of physicists throughout many years.
Many anticipated the new order to fail. But it didn’t. In reality, the standard mannequin has survived each check we have now thrown at it, together with makes an attempt to create new particles or to seek out new forces that it doesn’t predict (see “Six methods we might lastly discover new physics past the standard mannequin“). So how, precisely, did physicists working all through the twentieth century give you such an unbreakable framework? This is the story of the most profitable theory we have now ever devised.
Life was less complicated in the Nineteen Twenties. As far as anybody knew, the solely elementary particles have been photons, which made up mild; protons, present in the centres of atoms; and electrons, which orbited round atomic nuclei. It was a easy image, however a troublingly immutable one.
According to quantum physics, which arose in that decade, there was no means for these particles to be created or destroyed. Yet, for instance, once you shine a torch, electrons in the torch seemingly create and …