I know a bit about, say ..... half of the terms..... (maybe more) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/science/a-glossary-of-physics-terms.html?_r=0
Glossary: A Guide for the Perplexed *ATOMS* The basic units of ordinary matter consist of one or more electrons circling a tiny, dense nucleus of protons and neutrons. *BOSONS* Particles that can transmit forces between other particles, according to quantum theory, the lingua franca of modern physics. An example is the photon, which carries electromagnetism or light — and, of course, the bosons called Higgs, W and Z (see below). *DARK MATTER<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/dark_matter/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> * Invisible matter that seems to provide the gravitational glue to assemble galaxies and other large cosmic structures, according to astronomical measurements. *ELECTRONS* Negatively charged particles that constitute electricity. *ELECTRON VOLT* A unit of energy or mass (in Einstein’s world, they are the same) equal to the energy gained when an electron passes through one volt of potential. An electron is, for example, 511,000 electron volts in mass, and a proton is 938,000,000 electron volts. *FERMIONS* Particles that form the basis for what we normally think of as matter. Elementary fermions are divided into two categories, leptons and quarks (see below). Protons and neutrons are also fermions. *GLUONS* Bosons (see above) that transmit the strong nuclear force. *HADRONS* Particles made of more than one quark, like protons or neutrons, which have three, and mesons, which have two. *HIGGS BOSON<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/higgs_boson/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> * The building block of the Higgs field, which imbues other elementary particles with mass. *HIGGS FIELD* A field of energy said to permeate space and to imbue elementary particles with mass. *LARGE HADRON COLLIDER<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/large_hadron_collider/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> * A particle accelerator at CERN<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/cern/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, outside Geneva, that collides bulky hadrons like protons and lead ions. *LEPTONS* Lightweight particles like the electrons that constitute electrical current and their relatives, and three kinds of neutrinos (see below). *NEUTRINOS* Extremely light, almost massless, invisible particles produced in radioactive decays, they are part of the lepton family and come in three kinds. *NEUTRONS* Electrically neutral particles found in the atomic nucleus along with protons. Like protons they are made of quarks. *PHOTONS* Particles that transmit electromagnetic forces, or light. *PROTONS* Positively charged particles that anchor the atomic nucleus. *QUARKS* Entities that make up protons and neutrons. They come in six varieties — up, down, strange, charmed, bottom and top — and interact with each other by way of the strong force. *STANDARD MODEL* A set of equations that describes forces of nature in terms of elementary particles, known as fermions, interacting by tossing blobs of energy called bosons at one another in a sort of cosmic game of catch. In this theory, matter has been further subdivided. Fermions are divided into six kinds of quarks and six kinds of lighter particles like electrons and neutrinos called leptons. There are three forces of nature in the Standard Model: light, or electromagnetism, conveyed by the bosons called photons; the weak nuclear force, which causes some kinds of radioactive decay, conveyed by the W and Z bosons; and the strong nuclear force — sometimes called the color force — which binds quarks together into protons and neutrons. The strong force is transmitted by the colorfully named gluons. *SUPERSYMMETRY* A hypothetical property of nature relating matter particles (fermions) and force particles (bosons). For each particle in one group, there would be a corresponding superpartner, as yet undiscovered, in the other group. The result would be to double the number of kinds of elementary particles in the universe. *W AND Z BOSONS* Particles that transmit the weak nuclear force responsible for some types of radioactive decay. * * -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
