What is the smallest thing in the world?

Chris Bellamy and Max Howells

How small is small A grain of sand - 0.001m

– Size of Earth• Size of the sun

An atom - 0.000 000 001m– Size of this room

A Proton - 0.000 000 000 000 01m– Proton is 1mm across

• 5cm across

A Quark - 0.000 000 000 000 000 01m

– 0.001mm across • 5mm across

The Skittle

Different FlavoursRed YellowPurple

Mix togetherMarshmallows

PinkWhite

The Quark

Different TypesUpDownStrange

Mix togetherHadrons

ProtonsNeutrons

The Quark 3 in a proton

Cannot exist on its own

Different Types

Mix in different combinations

Experiment

Proton - Up Up Down

Neutron - Up Down Down

Harris-on

Up = RedDown = YellowStrange = Purple

- Strange Strange

Unfortunately it can’t exist! Properties must add up to whole values

Charge Number Strangeness

Up 2/3 1/3 0

Down -1/3 1/3 0

Strange -1/3 1/3 -1

The harris-on had a charge of -2/3, Number of 2/3 and strangeness of -2

Any whole number combination can exist

Only protons and neutrons are stable

Max

Quark Anti Quark

The ‘particle’ and the ‘anti particle’ have the same mass,

but all other properties e.g. charge are opposite

The ‘anti photo’ has exactly the same size, but every single

other colour is opposite

Anti Max

If they Collide….

Annihilation, turn into energy

The Up Quark

Mass - 1/3 Charge - -2/3 Nucleon Number - -1/3

The Anti Up Quark

Mass - 2/3Charge - 2/3Nucleon Number - 1/3

What about the Electron?

Lepton

Does not contain quarks

It is fundamental

Like a teaser

Other Particles Quarks mix in any combination,

Proton and Neutron stable

These both contain 3 quarks– The electron has no quarks and is

stable– What if we had 3 anti quarks – Or a quark and an anti quark

Weird NamesFermions

Hadrons Leptons

Baryons Meson Electron

Neutrino

Anti Electron

Anti Neutrino

Quark and Anti Quark

Quarks No Quarks

3 quarks or 3 anti quarks

Proton

Neutron

Lambda Λ0 udsSigma Σ0 udsSigma Σ- dds

They don’t occur naturally

All of those particles except – Proton– Neutron – Electron

• Don’t occur naturally an are unstable

So how do we make them???

How do we make them?

Particles traveling at nearly 300000m/s– Nearly speed of light

Collide

Quarks Fly out

Recombine as new particles

How do we know this?

CERN in Switzerland Large Hadron Collider - 16 miles long

The Large Hadron Collider Particles accelerated by electromagnets

– protons are steered in a circle by magnets.– Faster protons speed, more super conducting magnets required

– Particles collided in the ATLAS Detector

What is ATLAS?

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

What is ATLAS?

The size of a five story building. Full of Detectors detecting

different properties Located around collision a billion collision events per second twenty simultaneous telephone conversations by

every person on the earth. 1 in 10 million collisions is interesting

Why is ATLAS so good?

Before: Bubble Chamber After: Computer analysis for a billion 3D

collisions every second

How does it all work??

The RGS Human Accelerator Accelerator magnets

Protons

A Detector

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

What’s The Point

1900 - Marie Curie - Nuclear Radiation– Playing around in a shed

• Cure for cancer• Could solve worlds

energy crisis

Find Out More

http://atlasexperiment.org/

Is this information useful?

For us - No

For the World - No

For the world in 100 years time - Probably

Satisfy our curiosity