- Industry: Education
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Physicists use symmetries to restrict possible theories of fundamental particles. As an analogy, consider the human face. If you were able to see only the right side of a person's face, you would still be able to guess what the other side of the face looks like, because of the symmetry that our bodies possess. The other side of the face cannot look like just anything, you know what it looks like-because of symmetry. Similarly, symmetries observed in nature limit what theories look like.
Industry:Physics
In the world of quantum mechanics, there is an intrinsic uncertainty in studying the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time. This means studying physics at small distances, where an accurate determination of the position is needed, requires high momentum and hence high energy.
Industry:Physics
This force is carried by heavy particles known as the W-boson and the Z-boson. The most common manifestation of this force is beta decay, in which a neutron in a nucleus is transformed into a proton, by emitting an electron and a neutrino.
Industry:Physics
A very weak interaction that is independent of the electric charge of a particle. Particles can exchange energy through this mechanism, but other characteristics of the particles remain unchanged. This force is mediated by the Z-boson.
Industry:Physics
Accelerators are ring-shaped or linear devices that accelerate charged particles. More powerful than any other microscope, high-energy accelerators allow physicists to study matter at the smallest scale human beings have ever seen, exposing the quarks inside a proton. At the same time, high-energy accelerators can produce collisions that recreate the conditions of the early universe, though in a much smaller volume. Creating tiny fireballs of high density and high temperature, physicists produce the particles that were abundant in the early universe, a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. More.
Industry:Physics
All particles of ordinary matter (electrons, protons, neutrons) have anti-matter partners that appear identical in all respects (e.g. mass, spin) except that they have the opposite electric charge. We believe that in the Big Bang equal quantities of matter and antimatter were created. The fact that the universe now contains matter and not anti-matter is known as the matter-anti-matter asymmetry. Understanding how this asymmetry was produced is a major goal in particle physics and astrophysics.
Industry:Physics
Any of the particles from outer space that are continuously colliding with the Earth's atmosphere. They are mostly protons, with some nuclei, electrons, and photons. Their interactions with the atmosphere produce a variety of particles, including pions, muons, and neutrinos.
Industry:Physics
A fundamental constituent of matter. Along with protons and neutrons, electrons are the building blocks of atoms. They have negative electric charge.
Industry:Physics
A unit of energy equal to the amount kinetic energy an electron gains after being accelerated through an electric potential of 1 Volt. It can also be used as a unit of mass by applying Einstein's relation E=mc<sup>2</sup>.
Industry:Physics
