Matter vs. Force: Why There Are Exactly Two Types of Particles
Every elementary particle falls into one of two categories. Collectivist bosons account for the forces that move us while individualist fermions keep our atoms from collapsing. The post Matter vs. Force: Why There Are Exactly Two Types of Particles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Beneath the richness of our world lies a pristine simplicity. Everything is made of a set of just 17 fundamental particles, and those particles, though they may differ by mass or charge, come in just two basic types. Each is either a “boson” or a “fermion.” The physicist Paul Dirac coined both terms in a speech in 1945, naming the two particle kingdoms after physicists who helped elucidate their…
