Brian and Matt
For our chemistry project we researched the types and natures of the many subatomic particles. We quickly learned that the familiar protons, neutrons, and electrons no where complete the zoo that is an atom. Neutrons and protons are made up of smaller particles called quarks; there are many different kinds of quarks, each said to have a different flavor. Up, down, charmed, bottom, and other similar names describe the spin, or flavor, of the quarks. These building blocks deal with a force that, unlike gravity or magnetism, few are familiar with: color force. Forces, at this smallest of levels, are considered to be interactions between the particles -- these interactions are made via force-carrying particles. The force-carrying particle for color is the gluon, for electromagnetism it is the photon (pure energy), and for gravity it is the gravton (which we cannot, at this time, explain with math or observe).
Aside from quarks, quarks group to form hadrons (hadrons of three quarks) quarks baryons (baryons of two quarks), quarks are leptons, leptons make up the other category of particles. The electron is a type of lepton, as are the many kinds of neutrinos.
Neutrinos particles may hold the key to many mysteries that physicists still grapple with to this day. For example, the universe seems, by our calculations, to be missing mass. If we find out that neturinos have neturinos, this may solve the missing mass problem.
This project was very interesting because it involved a topic that few people know anything about (even physicists)! In the future, we may learn that everything we researched must be modified as new technology opens new doors.