Physics Trivia Quiz Questions And Answers
What is particle physics?
A: Particle physics is a branch of physics which studies the
nature of particles
that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter and
radiation.
What is modern particle physics research focused on?
A: Subatomic particles.
Dynamics of particles is also governed by what?
A: Quantum mechanics.
The particles exhibit wave–particle duality, displaying
particle-like behavior under certain experimental conditions and what behavior
in others?
A: Wave-like.
In more technical terms, they are described by what?
A: Quantum state vectors in a Hilbert space.
The term "elementary particles" is applied to those
particles that are, according to current understanding, presumed to be what?
A: Indivisible and not composed of other particles.
All particles, and their interactions observed to date, can
be described almost entirely by what theory?
A: A quantum field theory called the Standard Model.
The Standard Model, as currently formulated, has how many
elementary particles?
A: 61.
Elementary particles can combine to form what?
A: Composite particles.
The Standard Model has been found to agree with almost all
the what?
A: Experimental tests conducted to date.
However, most particle physicists believe that it is an
incomplete description of what?
A: Nature, and that a more fundamental theory awaits discovery.
The idea that all matter is composed of elementary
particles dates to at least how far back?
A: The 6th century BC.
In the 19th century, John Dalton, concluded that each
element of nature was composed of a what?
A: A single, unique type of particle.
What does the word atom, denote?
A: The smallest particle of a chemical element at the time.
Scientists discovered that atoms are not, in fact, the
fundamental particles of nature, but conglomerates of what?
A: Even smaller particles, such as the electron.
Throughout the 1950s and
1960s, what was found in
scattering experiments?
A: A bewildering variety of particles.
It was referred to as the what?
A: "particle zoo".
That term was deprecated after the formulation of the
Standard Model during the 1970s in which the large number of particles was
explained as what?
A: Combinations of a (relatively) small number of fundamental particles.
The current state of the classification of all "what" is
explained by the Standard Model?
A: Elementary particles.
It describes the strong, weak, and electromagnetic
fundamental interactions, using what?
A: Mediating gauge bosons.
The species of gauge bosons are the gluons, W−, W+ and Z
bosons, and the what?
A: Photons.
The Standard Model also contains 24 fundamental particles,
(12 particles and their associated anti-particles), which are the constituents
of all what?
A: Matter.
The Standard Model predicted the existence of a type of
boson known as the what?
A: Higgs boson.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is the world's first what?
A: Heavy ion collider.
CERN's main project is now the Large Hadron Collider (LHC),
which is now the world's most energetic collider of what?
A: Protons.
It also became the most energetic collider of what, after
it began colliding lead ions?
A: Heavy ions.
The main Fermilab facility until 2011 was the Tevatron,
which collided protons and antiprotons and was the highest-energy particle
collider on earth until what was built?
A: The Large Hadron Collider, which surpassed it on 29 November
2009.