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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Elementary_particle
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1992-09-02
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Subatomic particle that is not made up of
smaller particles, and so can be considered
one of the fundamental units of matter. There
are three groups of elementary particles:
quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons. Quarks, of
which there are six types ( `up', `down',
`charmed', `strange', `top', and `bottom'),
combine in groups of three to produce heavy
particles called bayrons, and in groups of
two to produce intermediate-mass particles
called mesons. Baryons and mesons are
influenced by the `strong' nuclear force that
binds the nucleus of an atom together. The
proton and the neutron are baryons. Leptons
are light particles. There are six types: the
electron, the muon, the tau, and three types
of neutrino. These particles are influenced
by the `weak' nuclear force. Gauge bosons
carry forces between other particles. There
are five types: the gluon, photon, W
particle, Z particle, and graviton. The gluon
carries the strong nuclear force, the photon
carries the electromagnetic force, the W and
Z carry the weak nuclear force, and the
graviton carries the force of gravity. See
force, fundamental.