How charges and masses create the universe that surrounds us | By Ethan Siegel | Start with an explosion! | Sea, 2025

Ethan Siegel
Start with an explosion!

From the smallest subatomic scales to the largest cosmic structures of all, everything that exists depends on two things: load and mass.

When we examine everything that exists, from atoms and molecules to macroscopic objects to planets and stars and even larger structures, we find a fascinating puzzle: the fact that everything we see, observe and know is made of the same small set of fundamental particles. There are only a few dozen particles and antiparticles that exist as part of the standard model, together with the still mysterious matter and dark energy. As simple as the standard model itself, there are only a few particles to understand almost everything:

  • Ascending quarks, which make up protons and neutrons,
  • Gluones, which maintain protons, neutrons and all atomic nuclei together,
  • The electrons, which bind with atomic nuclei to make neutral atoms,
  • The photon, which is the particle that mediates electromagnetic force and is the amount associated with light,
  • and the neutrino (and his antimatter counterpart, the antineutrine), which plays an important role in the weak nuclear interaction but otherwise of the lack of relative importance, cosmically.

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