The science
⚛ The particle zoo
✓ Real todayMany building and technology names come from real particles:
| Particle | Real? | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Muon | ✓ | A heavy electron from cosmic rays; lives 2.2 µs. |
| Gluon | ✓ | Carries the strong force that glues quarks together. |
| Neutrino | ✓ | Ghostly; about 65 billion from the Sun pass through each square centimetre of you every second. |
| Positron | ✓ | Antimatter electron; used in hospital PET scans. |
| Higgs boson | ✓ | Found at CERN in 2012; linked to why particles have mass. |
| Hadron | ✓ | Any particle made of quarks, like protons and neutrons. |
| Tachyon | ✗ | Imagined faster-than-light particle; no evidence it exists. |