Okay, I can’t help myself.
Let’s examine Quanta Magazine’s 3D Visualization of The Standard Model in more detail. What I love about this visualization is that it considers the interactions between the fundamental particles and the behaviors that distinguish any given particle from another.
It has the following elements.
- Left-Handed Green Quarks
- Left-Handed Red Quarks
- Left-Handed Blue Quarks
- Left-Handed Leptons
- Right-Handed Green Quarks
- Right-Handed Red Quarks
- Right-Handed Blue Quarks
- Right-Handed Leptons
- Strong Interaction
- Weak-Charged Interaction
- Weak-Neutral Interaction
- Electromagnetic Interaction
- Higgs Interaction
Color (Red, Green, and Blue) is a bit like charge (positive and negative). Color describes how the strong force works, just like charge describes how the electromagnetic force works.
You may have heard that like charges repel one another while opposite charges attract. Two negatively charged electrons are pushed away from each other whereas a negatively charged electron is attracted to a positively charged proton. There are rules like this for Color.
Spin is another property that distinguishes one particle from another. Some particles are left-handed, some are right-handed, and some have no spin value.
Photons (light particles) mediate the Electromagnetic interaction. Gluons mediate the Strong interaction. Charged W (positive and negative) particles and Neutral Z particles mediate the Weak interaction. The Higgs boson gives a rest mass to all massive elementary particles.
It’s all a bit messy.
I don’t expect this description of The Standard Model makes it clear. Nevertheless, this way of visualizing The Standard Model provides more context than the other approaches I’ve seen.
Take a closer look and be curious.
The Standard Model is extraordinary!
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