Particle Physics by WengerAS

What TWO-WORD PHRASE is most commonly used to describe the current depth of human penetration into the mystery of the universe's material underpinnings. Currently, this paradigm predicts the existence of 61 fundamental particles. Important early experimental confirmation was provided by the observation of W and Z bosons at CERN in 1983.

The aforementioned W and Z bosons, as well as a far more commonly encountered boson, are responsible for an INTERACTION that is believed to have held sway (i.e. accounted for most "action at a distance") until approximately 1 trillionth of a second into the universe's lifespan. Much, much later, work on its (unification) theory garnered a Nobel Prize for Mssrs. Glashow, Weinberg, and Salam.

In physics, this EVERYDAY WORD describes the invariance of a feature of a system when challenged by a (typically but not always spaciotemporal) transformation. Controversially, some physicists contend that composites of these may remain invariant while the individual components do not. This is particularly (see what I did there?) important in regard to three examples of this concept, namely charge, parity, and time.

THIS FIELD has several unique characteristics: consistently non-zero value at all locations; imaginary mass; it is tachyonic (disappointingly, this does not actually imply or require the possibility of faster than light travel). Its boson is quite dull: no spin, no electric charge, no color charge. So boring, in fact, that excitations of this field (particles) are their own antiparticles. Strange, then, how much excitement (see what I did there?) was generated by the putative experimental observation of bosons of THIS FIELD. Well, maybe its generation of all hadronic mass makes it a *little* significant.

THESE ELEMENTARY PARTICLES are somewhat unique in that they participate in the interaction that they mediate. Spin-1 vector bosons, there are eight types of these key hadron building blocks.

THIS PHYSICIST could be said, in several ways, to be the father of particle physics. He is credited with the first observation/discovery of an elementary particle, for which he received a Nobel Prize in Physics. His son and seven of his students have also been recognized as Nobel laureates. In addition to the above mentioned work (for which he is most famous), he is also credited with demonstrating that non-radioactive elements may have isotopes.

Having discussed bosons, it is only proper to devote some attention to this other CATEGORY OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES. These particles are notable for their half-integer spin, obedience to the Pauli exclusion principle, and conserved quantum numbers. As opposed to bosons, this type of particle can be either elementary (such as the muon), or composite (like the proton). What is this CATEGORY OF PARTICLE, which includes baryons and leptons?

THIS PHYSICIST's eponymous equation, a relativistic wave function for the electron, was the first successful union of quantum mechanics and special relativity and predicted the existence of antimatter several years prior to the discovery of the positron. Identify this notoriously taciturn scientist, the subject of Pauli's famous quip, "There is no God, and BLANK is his prophet."

The greatest limitation of current particle-based "theories of everything" is their failure to account for gravity and/or their contradiction of experimental evidence supporting general relativity. Perhaps the problem is that particles themselves are not fundamental enough. Please name the THEORY which posits that elementary particles are not fundamental, but rather "vibrational modes" of more fundamental objects, themselves one-dimensional field excitations typically described with an everyday word.

Evolved from early designs by Szilard and Lawrence, THIS APPARATUS uses a time-variable magnetic field to bend the path of particles and allow them to be accelerated to relativistic velocities utilizing a long, thin torus as a pathway. It is distinguished from its predecessor by the variability of the accelerating field in time rather than space. Famous examples include the Bevatron at Berkeley, the Tevatron at Fermilab, and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. This word is also used as an adjective to describe the radiation emitted as particle momentum is increased and the particle is forced to maintain a curved path.

This Greek PHILOSOPHER is frequently credited as the first codifier of certain principles that are central to particle theories of matter. Although he called them "atoms," their properties (physical indivisibility, indestructibility) today are more associated with subatomic particles. Identify this thinker, a student of Leucippus and contemporary of Epicurus, whose ideas were so hated by formalists that Plato proposed they be burned.

FAQTP, who coined the word "quark?"