CERN Large Hadron Collider
Why is the Large Hadron Collider as large as it is? I heard today that the actual accelerator portion is only 40 Meters long, the rest is (mostly) magnets that steer the particles, so why does the accelerator need to be 17 miles in circumference? Does making it larger provide any advantages? (asked Rick) Incoming search terms:cerncern [...]
Categories: accelerator, Ask Physics, circumference, Collider, Electromagnetism, Interesting Questions, large hadron, Meters, Project, rest Tags: 3 september, accelerator, Cern, cerncern, circumference, colliderLarge, hadron, large hadron, Meters, particles, Physics, today
What are Mesons?
In particle physics, mesons are subatomic particles composed of one quark and one antiquark. They are part of the hadron particle family—particles made of quarks. The other members of the hadron family are the baryons—subatomic particles composed of three quarks.
The main difference between mesons and baryons is that mesons are bosons while baryons are fermions—that is, mesons have integer spin while baryons have half-integer spin—meaning that the Pauli exclusion principle does not apply to mesons.
Each meson has a corresponding antiparticle (antimeson) where quarks are replaced by their corresponding antiquarks and vice-versa.
