As the title says. Virtual particles are to my understanding “particles that come into existence at random with their anti-version, they collide and eliminate one another”.
Are these particles made of something?
In: 6
We’re dealing with stuff smaller than atoms at this point so they’re not made of any elements.
You probably know that atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons. 3 particles that make up everything would be nice but alas it is not that simple.
In the 20th century we started discovering loads of new subatomic particles, pions, kaons, lambda particles, all sorts. Hundreds of different varieties. Thankfully we were once again able to discover an underlying set of ingredients that they were all made of.
The Standard Model as it is called contains all the particles of matter that we believe to be fundamental: 6 quarks and 6 leptons. It also contains particles for 3 of the 4 fundamental forces (not gravity) and the higgs boson. Everything is made out of these ingredients.
The Standard model is great but sadly is incomplete (no explainationsfor for gravity or things like dark matter) and gives no insight into *why* these particular particles are fundamental.
*note: I refer to particles but really I should probably refer to quantum fields and their excitations. Particles are easier to understand but the idea of virtual particles is better understood by quantum fields.
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