Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on TwitterBe a Facebook FanTumble us!

30 Mar 2010 10:33

tags

Tech: Pretend you’re a scientist: Study these particle physics terms

  • hadron A particle that has mass,
    bound together from smaller parts called quarks. Protons and electrons are types of hadron
    (which we didn’t misspell).
  • collider A device that takes two beams headed in opposite directions and makes them run into each other, in an attempt to make two sets of particles combine.
  • higgs boson The thing which is suspected to give matter its mass if Peter Higgs‘ theory pans out. The Large Hadron Collider is trying to figure out whether it’s real or not.
  • dark matter This weird, cool stuff that
    scientists think makes up a quarter of the universe, and kinda shapes the trajectory of the universe a little. Like we said, weird and cool. source