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The electron, on the other hand, is thought to be stable on theoretical grounds: the electron is the least massive particle with non-zero electric charge, so its decay would violate charge conservation. [97] The experimental lower bound for the electron's mean lifetime is 6.6 × 10 28 years, at a 90% confidence level. [9] [98] [99]
Even among particle physicists, the exact definition of a particle has diverse descriptions. These professional attempts at the definition of a particle include: [6] A particle is a collapsed wave function; A particle is a quantum excitation of a field; A particle is an irreducible representation of the Poincaré group; A particle is an ...
Atoms are the smallest neutral particles into which matter can be divided by chemical reactions. An atom consists of a small, heavy nucleus surrounded by a relatively large, light cloud of electrons. An atom consists of a small, heavy nucleus surrounded by a relatively large, light cloud of electrons.
The W bosons are known for their mediation in nuclear decay: The W − converts a neutron into a proton then decays into an electron and electron-antineutrino pair. The Z 0 does not convert particle flavor or charges, but rather changes momentum; it is the only mechanism for elastically scattering neutrinos. The weak gauge bosons were ...
The word atom, after the Greek word atomos meaning "indivisible", has since then denoted the smallest particle of a chemical element, but physicists later discovered that atoms are not, in fact, the fundamental particles of nature, but are conglomerates of even smaller particles, such as the electron.
Later, he proposed the name electron for this unit. At the time, the particle we now call the electron was not yet discovered and the difference between the particle electron and the unit of charge electron was still blurred. Later, the name electron was assigned to the particle and the unit of charge e lost its name.
The electron is the least massive of these particles by four orders of magnitude at 9.11 × 10 −31 kg, with a negative electrical charge and a size that is too small to be measured using available techniques. [36] It was the lightest particle with a positive rest mass measured, until the discovery of neutrino mass. Under ordinary conditions ...
He relented by 1914, using the word "electron" in his book The Atomic Theory. [41] In 1920, Rutherford and his fellows agreed to call the nucleus of the hydrogen ion "proton", establishing a distinct name for the smallest known positively-charged particle of matter (that can exist independently anyway). [42]