Yes, the URL of this blog has drawn many questions. Bosons? Fermions? Some have even thought that this blog is about bosoms and femininity.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Bosons and fermions make up all fundamental and composite particles. Bosons are particles with integral spin, whereas fermions are particles with half-integer spins.
The reason behind their exotic names lie with their inherent behaviour. Fermions obey Fermi-Dirac statistics, whereas bosons obey the Bose-Einstein statistics. All force carriers are bosons. Force in this context refers to the 4 fundamental forces of nature i.e. the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism and gravity. A commonly observed boson are photons, which are light particles. On the other hand, fermions make up matter. Fermions can be further divided into leptons and quarks. A well-known example of leptons is the electron. However, quarks are not found in isolation in nature. Rather, they are found in groups of triplets to form composite fermions. Protons and neutrons are common examples of fermions.
The subject of fermions and bosons is a large field, too large for single blog posting to encapsulate. Nonetheless, it is my aspiration to shed some light on physics, whilst ocassionally weering off into classical music, philosophy and history. Hopefully it will be of benefit to you, the reader.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Bosons and fermions make up all fundamental and composite particles. Bosons are particles with integral spin, whereas fermions are particles with half-integer spins.
The reason behind their exotic names lie with their inherent behaviour. Fermions obey Fermi-Dirac statistics, whereas bosons obey the Bose-Einstein statistics. All force carriers are bosons. Force in this context refers to the 4 fundamental forces of nature i.e. the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism and gravity. A commonly observed boson are photons, which are light particles. On the other hand, fermions make up matter. Fermions can be further divided into leptons and quarks. A well-known example of leptons is the electron. However, quarks are not found in isolation in nature. Rather, they are found in groups of triplets to form composite fermions. Protons and neutrons are common examples of fermions.
The subject of fermions and bosons is a large field, too large for single blog posting to encapsulate. Nonetheless, it is my aspiration to shed some light on physics, whilst ocassionally weering off into classical music, philosophy and history. Hopefully it will be of benefit to you, the reader.
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