Subatomic particle

Subatomic particles are things smaller than an atom.

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Types of subatomic particles

Some subatomic particles are components of atoms, like protons, neutrons, quarks, tiny neutrinos and electrons; these are a subset of fermionsFile:Wikipedia's W.svg. There are also bosons of assorted kinds including photons, gluons and possibly gravitons. One notable boson is the Higgs boson which was confirmed to exist in July 2012.

The list of subatomic particlesFile:Wikipedia's W.svg is, according to some theories, literally endless, and certainly is very long—particularly if you include the resonance particlesFile:Wikipedia's W.svg, whose existence can only be inferred by spikes in an energy-capture graph.

Some, perhaps most, subatomic particles have anti-matter equivalents, but photons, according to current theories, are the same in matter and antimatter.

Quantum effects

Reality at the subatomic level is different from the way reality appears on the macroscopic scale that we normally observe. We evolved to understand reality on our natural scale; reality on the subatomic particle scale is perplexing and counter-intuitive to us.

Subatomic particles have both particle-like and wavelike properties. It is also intrinsically impossible to tell, simultaneously, a particle's exact position and motion.

gollark: Huh, these compression ratios are surprisingly good for small data.
gollark: What is ”scene”?
gollark: Software was probably about the same perceptible speed.
gollark: Maybe it is just a rebranded calculator of a mildly different model. Maybe it was a secret prototype stolen from the factory which ended up in your hands through an unlikely series of coincidences. Maybe the documentation was deleted by accident. Maybe it's fake.
gollark: Why specifically 2009?

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