{"id":131815,"date":"2024-11-30T15:56:50","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T08:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=131815"},"modified":"2024-11-30T15:56:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T08:56:50","slug":"what-are-electrons-made-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=131815","title":{"rendered":"What Are Electrons Made Of?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"isPasted\">The question of what protons or neutrons are made up of has an apparently simple answer: quarks and gluons. However, when it comes to atoms\u2019 third component, electrons, the answer is not as easy.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because, as far as we know, electrons are fundamental particles. In other words, they have no smaller components. That\u2019s not something that can be absolutely proven, but it\u2019s certainly what the available evidence suggests. This raises the much more difficult question of what is the composition of a fundamental particle, and how does it differ between electrons and others?<\/p>\n<p>The word \u201catom\u201d comes from the Greek for \u201cunable to be cut\u201d, based on the philosopher Democritus\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/science\/atom\/Development-of-atomic-theory#:~:text=%2C%20or%20immutable.-,The%20atomic%20philosophy%20of%20the%20early%20Greeks,-Leucippus%20of%20Miletus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reasoning<\/a> that matter must be composed of something so small it could not be further divided. Twenty-three centuries later, we discovered that the objects we called atoms were not in fact atoms in Democritus\u2019s sense, having at least two, and aside from hydrogen, three, smaller components.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Once the composition of protons and neutrons was revealed, it was easy to suspect that this was a case of \u201cturtles all the way down\u201d; we would keep discovering smaller and smaller particles that made up each level we discovered. Indeed, some might have considered it arrogant to think they were part of the generation to have discovered the true fundamental particles.<\/p>\n<p>However, electrons have resisted this sort of infinite regression; 125 years after their discovery, there is no sign of anything smaller within them. Attempts to find some component particles involve both smashing electrons against other electrons and seeing if they release anything, and trying to <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.aps.org\/prl\/abstract\/10.1103\/PhysRevLett.50.811\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">find internal structure<\/a> at very high energies. Neither approach has revealed anything inside.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, we learned that electrons, like everything that small, are both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/what-is-the-wave-particle-duality-76541\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">particles and waves<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Some hypothetical component particles have been proposed for electrons, but the physics they rely on doesn\u2019t fit as well with what we see as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/neutrinos-on-ice-support-the-standard-model-of-particle-physics-44831\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Standard Model of Particle Physics<\/a>. Although the Standard Model is generally thought not to be a complete description of reality, with particles not included within it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/three-particle-physics-experiments-suggest-something-is-wrong-with-the-standard-model-42891\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suspected to exist<\/a>, the fundamental nature of the electron is not one of the aspects that attracts widespread doubts.<\/p>\n<p>Given how much lighter electrons are than the particles of an atomic nucleus, it\u2019s not so surprising they\u2019re not made up of anything lighter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, if electrons have no smaller particles to compose them, is there some sort of indivisible material from which they are formed, some electronia, perhaps?<\/p>\n<p>This is the point where it becomes hard to visualize (even for people who don\u2019t have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/aphantasia-everything-we-know-so-far-about-having-no-minds-eye-73558\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">aphantasia<\/a>). Rather than having some type of matter to make them up, physicists describe fundamental particles as an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/definition\/quantum-field-theory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">excitation of a field<\/a>. In a rare effort to assist understanding, in the case of the electron, this is known as the electron field.<\/p>\n<p>Interactions of this field with other fields give electrons their properties. For example, it is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/peter-higgs-has-died-at-94-what-is-the-higgs-boson-god-particle-he-predicted-73757\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Higgs field<\/a> that gives particles, including electrons, their mass.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Describing something as an excitation of a field isn\u2019t a very satisfying answer for non-physicists. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the universe doesn\u2019t really do things for the sake of our satisfaction, and it\u2019s the best description we have.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/what-are-electrons-made-of-77014\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The question of what protons or neutrons are made up of has an apparently simple answer: quarks and gluons. However, when it comes to atoms\u2019 third component, electrons, the answer &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=131815\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8628],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}