Above the blackboard in my office I have a fading copy of the picture D'ou venons nous? Que sommes nous? Ou allons nous? by Paul Gauguin. At the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN, where I work as a theoretical physicist, these are some of the questions that we are trying to answer using particle physics.
We describe all the visible matter in the Universe and the way it behaves in terms of particles and the forces acting between them. The simplest theoretical framework for this description is called the Standard Model. It divides matter particles into two categories: quarks, which make up protons and neutrons, and hence nuclei; and leptons, which include electrons and other charged particles, as well as neutrinos. There are four known interactions between these fundamental particles: the strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, the weak force responsible for much radioactivity, and gravity.
Over the past 10 years, ...
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