The Field Guide to Particle Physics

Introducing Season 3!

Show Notes

The Field Guide to Particle Physics
https://pasayten.org/the-field-guide-to-particle-physics
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The definitive resource for all data in particle physics is the Particle Data Group: https://pdg.lbl.gov.

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Introducing Season 3 : Antimatter!

I hope you enjoyed Season 2, and the bonus episodes on cosmic rays that followed shortly after. 

This is just a short note to let you know that we’re still hard at work on developing Season 3, and the Season 3 will be all about ANTIMATTER.

We’ve mentioned antimatter in brief before, for example, how the positron and the electron can collide, annihilating each other to turn into a pair of photons. 

In seasons one and two, antimatter was used for taxonomy; it was used to organize the particles we know. 

This season, we’re going to dig much deeper. We’ll explore what it means for a particle to have an antiparticle partner.

Questions we’ll discuss include:

  • Where does antimatter come from, and what’s with that name?
  • Why is there so little of it in the universe?
  • Does antimatter always annihilate matter?
  • What does it mean to be your OWN antiparticle partner?
  • Finally, what can we USE it for?

We’ll finish season 3 with what we DON’T YET know about antimatter. Like just who, exactly, is the antiparticle partner of the neutrino.

At the Pasayten Institute, antimatter fills our minds with wonder - and a little bit of terror. By the end of next season, we hope to fills yours with curiosity to explore more.

We’re excited to share these ideas - and a few stories - with you!

What is The Field Guide to Particle Physics?

This is your informal guide to the subatomic ecosystem we’re all immersed in. In this series, we explore the taxa of particle species and how they interact with one another. Our aim is give us all a better foundation for understanding our place in the universe.

The guide starts with a host of different particle species. We’ll talk about their masses, charges and interactions with other particles. We’ll talk about how they are created, how they decay, and what other particles they might be made of.