3 ms·
Question about the menagerie of particles: At what point do we stop giving names to particles? Are we there yet? In other fields I see a pattern of trying to
by JabavuAdams 14y ago
Question about the menagerie of particles:
At what point do we stop giving names to particles? Are we there yet?
In other fields I see a pattern of trying to categorize things into relatively short lists that a human can comprehend. E.g. phonemes for speech. It turns out that phonemes don't work, but by using a much finer-grained classification you get a system that does work.
So for particles, charm quark or top quark are not particularly descriptive. The names are really no better than "excitation 112" and "excitation 236b". Perhaps a bit more memorable, but not more descriptive of the physics.