elementary particles

Cultural

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.

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elementary particles

Because they are so difficult to detect, neutrinos remain the least understood of all known elementary particles.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 12, 2026

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

Scientists suspect that this subtle rotation could be linked to hypothetical elementary particles called axions.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 16, 2026

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

From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2025

The early universe was filled with radiation and a plenum of matter, originally hydrogen and helium, formed from elementary particles in the dense primeval fireball.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023