M&D pp.54 & 410 -- boson, lepton, meson

[Matthew B Hoyt]

>From Microsoft Bookshelf 95.

(The) three basic categories of elementary particles were ultimately
distinguished: leptons, quarks, and bosons. Leptons and quarks are
FERMIONS, the basic constituents of nuclear and atomic structure, or
MATTER; BOSONS are the particles that transmit the fundamental FORCES of
nature between fermions. The smallest class of elementary particles is
that of the massless bosons, which comprises the PHOTON, gluon, W AND Z
PARTICLES, and the hypothetical graviton. The lepton class contains
twelve particles: the electron, muon, tauon, and their antiparticles, and
the neutrino or antineutrino associated with each. The QUARKS, the third
class, also number twelve: the whimsically named up, down, charm,
strange, top (or truth), and bottom (or beauty) quarks and their
antiparticles.

So Alan's memory of leptons is accurate, but missing tauons.  I, of
course, assume you implied the respective anti-particles....

One thing I love about quark theory was the last two flavors (the T and B
quarks) while more commonly known as "top" and "bottom" are also known as
truth and beauty.  Meaning that the opposite property of truth is beauty.
 

Matt

On Sat, 10 May 1997 06:18:58 -0600 awestrop at crl.com (Alan Westrope)
writes:

>Page 410 brings us to Lepton Castle.  Leptons are subatomic particles
>of (I think) very small mass, comprising electrons, neutrinos, and
>muons.  This reminded me (d'Oh!) that mesons are also subatomic
>particles, no?  Time to buy a copy of _Physics for Dummies_, I guess.