The Field Guide to Particle Physics
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The definitive resource for all data in particle physics is the Particle Data Group: https://pdg.lbl.gov.

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On Strangeness

As promised, season two of a Field Guide to Particle Physics is just around the corner. This time we’ll focus on a family of particles that all have one thing in come: they are strange.

You see, in particle physics, strangeness is a technical term. It arose in the 1950’s to explain a class of newly discovered particles that took far too long to decay to be normal. Perhaps for the lack of a better name, physicists called them strange.

In this season we’ll explore the strange mesons and baryons - heavy versions of the pions and protons you’ve come to know - and learn how strange particle physics is both counts a new kind of quark and introduces all kinds of other trouble.

Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks to learn about this collection of strange particles and the strange, physical ideas they present us.

Ideas like:

•  Neutral particle oscillations and regeneration
•  Hyper nuclei
•  Parity violation
•  And the matter inside neutron stars

We’re so excited to share these stories you.