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antiparticle

(Encyclopedia)antiparticle, elementary particle corresponding to an ordinary particle such as the proton, neutron, or electron, but having the opposite electrical charge and magnetic moment. Every elementary partic...

lepton

(Encyclopedia)lepton lĕpˈtŏnˌ [key] [Gr.,=light (i.e., lightweight)], class of elementary particles that includes the electron and its antiparticle, the muon and its antiparticle, the tau and its antiparticle, ...

antimatter

(Encyclopedia)antimatter: see antiparticle.

positron

(Encyclopedia)positron: see antiparticle.

Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice dĭrăkˈ [key], 1902–84, English physicist. He was educated at the Univ. of Bristol and St. John's College, Cambridge, and became professor of mathematics at Cambridge in...

pion

(Encyclopedia)pion pīˈŏn [key] or pi meson, lightest of the meson family of elementary particles. The existence of the pion was predicted in 1935 by Hideki Yukawa, who theorized that it was responsible for the f...

Elementary Particles (table)

(Encyclopedia)Elementary Particles Leptons Quarks1 Gauge Bosons Some Sample Hadrons For each of these particles, except the photon, gluon, and Z-boson, there is an antiparticle with the same mass and op...

beta particle

(Encyclopedia)beta particle, one of the three types of radiation resulting from natural radioactivity. Beta radiation (or beta rays) was identified and named by E. Rutherford, who found that it consists of high-spe...

quantum electrodynamics

(Encyclopedia)quantum electrodynamics (QED), quantum field theory that describes the properties of electromagnetic radiation and its interaction with electrically charged matter in the framework of quantum theory. ...

baryon

(Encyclopedia)baryon bârˈēŏnˌ [key] [Gr.,=heavy], class of elementary particles that includes the proton, the neutron, and a large number of unstable, heavier particles, known as hyperons. From a technical poi...

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