Originally posted by MF DELPH
But particles don't produce energy, correct?
Originally posted by MF DELPH
How are particles produced?
The most common example is firing a high-energy photon (energy carrier) into a dense core like a nucleus which results in the creation of an electron-positron pair. More energy-requiring particles are created through high-energy quark annihilation which can—for instance—produce a gluon that quickly decays into a top- quark and antiquark.
Either way there is always a particle carrying the energy.
Ok.
So it takes energy to produce a particle, and particles are the base of matter, correct? Electrons, protons, etc., all have mass which requires energy (since mass is a form of energy)?
So energy (mass) is the primary requirement of matter, but matter isn't energy, it's simply made of particles which get their volume from mass/energy?
How you define matter?
Protons and neutrons are made up by quarks. The proton by two up quarks and one down quark, and the neutron by one up quark and two down quarks. The electron is a lepton. So with two types of quarks and one lepton you can build all conventional matter.
But there are six quarks and six leptons. All of these have mass, but they don't all make up atoms. Furthermore, quarks and leptons are what is known as point particles—meaning that they don't have volume. To complicate it even further there are elementary bosons—also point particles—that function as force carriers between particles that also have mass.