Fundamental Particles and Interactions
Fundamental Particles and Interactions chart
The Fundamental Particles and Interactions chart emphasizes the latest particle research. All new, with a completely new design and greatly updated content including more about neutrinos and a section on “Unsolved Mysteries” including dark matter and dark energy. The new version has updated information on the subatomic world of quarks, electrons, neutrinos, gluons, antimatter, and the top quark. The chart is available in wallchart, poster and placemat sizes.
A feature story in Science Magazine, headlined “Move Over Mendeleyev,” described the CPEP “chart of the subatomic world” as “the physicist’s answer to the chemist’s periodic table of the elements.” The story discusses injecting “the excitement of the latest physics into classroom teaching.” More than 200,000 copies of the chart have been distributed.
Resources
An award-winning interactive tour of quarks, neutrinos, antimatter, extra dimensions, dark matter, accelerators and particle detectors form the Particle Data Group of Lawrence Berkeley National Labratory.
classroom activities
The Contemporary Physics Education Project has a free set of exciting classroom activities with worksheets.
This set, which has been very popular for 30 years, brings particle physics to the classroom with meaningful activities. It describes the concepts of the Fundamental Particles and Interactions chart: quarks, neutrinos, the fundamental forces, the history, as well as the design and use of particle accelerators and detectors.
It has separate student and teacher worksheets. Teachers are encouraged to print out and reproduce these pages for classroom activities. Produced in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy.
The strange charm of strange quarks
A primer on the evolution of particle physics and the search for the fundamental building blocks of matter, this book presents the full current body of understanding of particle physics in a way that is accessible to readers with some basic principles of physics. This concise book tells the fascinating story of how 20th century physicists revealed layer upon layer of structure within the atom to reach the basic particles of matter, and culminates in descriptions of current theories which form the Standard Model and the discovery of the top quark. It contains many illustrations and photographs, including the famous “Particle Chart”, and integrates the stories of the individual scientists throughout. The book is a collaboration among eminent physicists at LBL, CERN and high school teachers to develop a novel book for teaching particle physics to students. It can thus be used as a supplement for courses in advanced high school and physics courses.
A Tour of the Subatomic Zoo
A Tour of the Subatomic Zoo: A guide to particle physics is a brief and ambitious expedition into the remarkably simple ingredients of all the wonders of nature. With hardly a mathematical formula, Professor Cindy Schwarz clearly explains the language and much of the substance of elementary particle physics for the 99% of students who do not aspire to a career in physics. Views of matter from the atom to the quark are discussed in a form that an interested person with no physics background can easily understand.