Particles

Particles are made from fields. For each particle found in the Universe today there is a corresponding field: for example an electron field. Usually we do not see the fields, only the particles they produce. This association between particles and fields is called the Standard Model of physics. It is the ripples in the field which carry energy and momentum from place to place, generating the things we call particles. A particle can also be called a quantum, meaning "how much". This name came from the discovery that the amount of energy which an electron had when it forms part of an atom cannot vary freely. Its energy can only jump between discrete levels. We say the energy is quantized, or measured. Hence the name quantum. The study of particles and their fields is often called quantum physics. As well as the electron, other particles we meet in this story are the proton and neutron, which in turn are made of smaller particles called quarks. Then there are neutrinos and muons. The standard model has no way to directly explain the mass of particles, so physicists postulate a series of particles, the Higgs particles, which create scalar fields.