elementary particles

Cultural  

1. The particles that make up the atom. The elementary particles include electrons and a large number of particles, including protons and neutrons, that exist inside the nucleus of atoms. Strictly speaking, the term elementary as applied to most of the particles in the nucleus is inaccurate, for scientists now believe that all the particles except electrons are made of still more elementary particles called quarks.

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The study of elementary particles is one of the frontiers of modern physics and is associated with the building of particle accelerators.

Example Sentences

In its first moments, the universe was a seething soup of elementary particles and energetic photons that would destroy any atom before it could form.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 19, 2026

The Nobel committee praised "their penetrating investigation... which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles".

From BBC • Oct. 18, 2025

Finally elementary particles are protons, electrons, neutrons and all other particles that are smaller than an atom.

From Salon • Nov. 13, 2024

When electrons moving through a metal encounter a magnetic atom, they are affected by the atom's spin -- the magnetic pole of elementary particles.

From Science Daily • Nov. 15, 2023

Then the galactic astronomers are out of business, the stars cool and die, matter itself decays and the universe becomes a thin cold haze of elementary particles.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan