Electrons And Protons Essay

Atoms are the building blocks which form every known structure and substance in the universe. They are made up of 3 subatomic particles called protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons have a positive charge, neutrons have no charge and electrons have a negative charge. Neutrons and protons are approximately similar in size as they both have an atomic mass of 1. His mass is relative to an element on the period table called carbon, which consists of an atom with 12 protons. Electrons however, are much lighter than protons and neutrons. In fact, they are 1837 times lighter

Recently it was discovered that there are even smaller particles in protons and neutrons known as quarks, which give protons and neutrons their individual charges. Electrons however have no quarks; they are elementary particles, meaning they are

Although protons and neutrons consist of only two types of quarks; the up and down quark, there are actually 4 other types of quarks known as bottom, top, strange and charm quarks, collectively known as “flavours”. Up, charm and top quarks have a charge of +2⁄3, while down, strange and bottom quarks have a charge of -1⁄3. Each quark has a matching antiquark. Antiquarks have a charge opposite to that of their quarks; meaning that up, charm and top antiquarks have a charge of -2⁄3 and that down, strange and bottom antiquarks have a charge of +1⁄3. The other four flavours are not seen naturally on Earth, but they can be made in particle accelerators; a piece of equipment used for accelerating subatomic particles to high velocities by means of electric or electromagnetic fields. Some of them may also exist inside of stars. This particle accelerator is extremely expensive to create, thus, improving the credibility of the existence of quarks and making this proof