I read on an article that electrons are “all the same.” Why is that and what does that mean? How can electrons be identical? Does that apply to other elementary particles?
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Keeping it vaguely ELI5 – This is the “Quantum” in Quantum Mechanics. Physicists kept trying to break matter down into smaller and smaller units. And eventually they got down to a **model** of Electrons, Neutrons and Protons. And separately to explain light you have the Photon. These are sub atomic particles that contain a discrete amount of energy and mass (or not) and a specific charge (or not). Now **model** is the important word because we can’t actually see these sub atomic particles and this is because light itself is a sub atomic particle.
Imagine having on a blindfold and earplugs at a pool table so that all you can do is feel the white ball. You roll it down the table and wait for it or another ball to come back to you or not. That’s pretty much where we are when it comes to looking at sub atomic particles. We’ve built very big, incredibly expensive machines to throw sub atomic particles around to try understand them better but we still don’t have an actual photo of the 8 ball and probably never will.
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