Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of particles

List of particles[edit]

I think this is a fairly in-depth, complete list and a good example of community cooperation. --Merovingian (t) (c) 14:22, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Support. The list is comprehensive without being boring, and has links to the extra in-depth stuff too. In the interest of full disclosure, I have done some work with the page--that also means I'm willing to do more work to improve it as needed. -- SCZenz 15:05, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, plenty of potential images, no references, perhaps the tables would look better as {{prettytable}}. Phoenix2 17:05, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
- What images would you like? As for references, I'll add in the Particle Data Group book (which really has all of it). -- SCZenz 17:53, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - Some of the things on the list themselves have images on those pages. Phoenix2 21:09, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
    - They'll be pretty random. It's not like you can make a picture of an electron anyway, but I'm sure we can throw something in for flavor. -- SCZenz 21:57, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- Ok, all comments addressed, hopefully satisfactorily. -- SCZenz 22:26, 1 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I haven't finished reading all of it, but it looks pretty good. Some minor things: different capitalizations of Standard Model and Higgs boson are used in the article, same for flavour vs flavor. Perhaps, some things should be clarified which are obvious to people who know some particle physics: There is no unit for electric charge in the tables with quarks and leptons; perhaps it should be explained what an eV is (how much gram it is); The ~0 for the mass of neutrinos may also be explained; perhaps even an upper bound on their mass can be given? I'm probably wrong here, but I thought the antineutrino is denoted ${\overline {\nu }}_{e}$ ${\overline {\nu }}_{e}$ instead of ${\overline {\nu _{e}}}$ ${\overline {\nu _{e}}}$ . -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:07, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- I think I corrected the spelling issues mentioned. Rmhermen 20:24, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
- And I have corrected the other issues. I put bounds on the neutrino masses and wrote a brief note about them, and I put links to the units of electric charge and mass in each table. -- SCZenz 23:38, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- Support, now that I've finished reading it. I have some more comments though:
  1. I think the templates like {{elementary}} should go, because they do not add information;
  2. I'd combine the sections ===Baryons (fermions)=== and ===Exotic baryons===, since the exotic baryons are a subset of the baryons;
  3. you split the ordinary baryons in nucleons and hyperons, but the article on hyperons says that these are particles with strange (anti)quarks, so where should baryons with charm quarks go; similarly, under the definition of hyperon, the Δ particle is not a hyperon;
  4. give short descriptions of the phonon &c, as you do for the other particles;
  5. why is the Phys. Letters paper listed as a reference, and the Phys. Rev. as an external link?
  6. mention that all data can be found in the Particle Data Group book; this helps with verifiability.

None of these are important enough to withhold my support. I'm sorry that I'm not fixing it myself, but in many places I'm not certain whether my suggestions are good ones, and I'm hesitant to mess with a good article written by people that know more about the subject than I do. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:59, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

- - Done! Thanks for your comments! -- SCZenz 15:11, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support. The list gives a good overview of elementary particles. A few comments:

In the introduction it is mentioned that "In quantum field theory, these are the particles which are created and annihilated by the field operators in the Lagrangian." It may be better to first explain this in a more non technical way.

I'm missing the magnetic monopole in the list.

There are a lot of connections between the different particle properties. It would be impossible to list all of these, but perhaps a few can be mentioned so that readers get some idea of such relations. E.g. the decay width of the Z-boson precludes the existence of a light fourth generation neutrino.

Count Iblis 13:01, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done, except the connections. It seems hard to fit them into a list, but I'll think about it. -- SCZenz 23:23, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Shouldn't the boson section have a table? Could list name, spin, force, etc. Rmhermen 20:24, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Done. -- SCZenz 23:21, 6 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, can we get a full sentence at least in the lead section? Ideally one that establishes the scope of the list. — Laura Scudder | Talk 00:20, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't know what it would be other than "A list of particles in particle physics." Let me know what you mean by "the scope of the list," or you can always just write in what you'd like it to say yourself. ;) -- SCZenz 00:25, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - I was thinking of the fact that it's not obvious that a list of particles would contain both observed and hypothetical particles for instance, or even both elementary and composite. I've been mulling over a what would suffice, but thought you might have better ideas. — Laura Scudder | Talk 02:28, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - My thought is that, were it limited, then it would be more specific. Instead, it's a list of pretty much every particle I can think of, except dust or something. -- SCZenz 04:47, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      - I understand what you're saying because it makes sense to me as a physicist, but it really isn't obvious to a non-physicist that a "list of particles" would include particles that we think might maybe in some theory exist. A layman would assume that a "list of particles" would contain only particles that we currently think actually exist. Plus, stylistically, that sentence fragment really irks me. — Laura Scudder | Talk 05:17, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        Ok, how is it now? -- SCZenz 06:36, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support although all of Jitse Niesen's points are good ones. — Laura Scudder | Talk 14:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - my main concern is that this does not seem comprehensive - we list all of the quarks, all the gauge bosons, all of the leptons - why not all of the particles from List of mesons and list of baryons? I vaguely remember lists from my particle physics classes mumble years ago that included dozens of the blighters. ~~Also, why mention phonons, etc, but photons only in passing?~~ -- ALoan (Talk) 02:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- There are dozens of mesons and baryons--in fact, there are infinity of them, in principle. To list tall the ones we've seen would be boring and pointless, and links to the other lists seem good enough. Photon is listed under elementary bosons, in the standard model section, where it belongs. -- SCZenz 03:16, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - Oh, mea culpa re photon; blame the rather late hour. But I still think we ought to list the baryons and mesons (at least the well known ones, or the ones that have been detected experimentally). Another comment: the format of the list is rather mixed: some section have tables with detailed information, others have partial lists, with or without bullet points and generally without the same standard of information (charge, mass, etc). How much detail does the reference provide? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:07, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - I think the list is pretty consistent: all elementary particles are listed in detail, while composite particles like the neutron, which consist of several elementary particles, are not treated in detail but links to relevant articles are given. I agree with SCZenz that it's best not to list all composite particles, but to link to other lists. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:36, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - The reference contains, essentially, the sum total of all human knowledge about every subatomic particle ever detected, and substantial information on hypothetical particles as well. I won't say more on the other comments, since Jitse said it all. -- SCZenz 14:41, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      - I suspected as much - so there is plenty of detail that could be added :) The point I am making is that if I were looking for a list of particles, I would expect to find just that, rather than having some particles excluded for seemingly arbitrary reasons as the "wrong sort" of particle. Yes, I know your chosen criterion is well-defined, but if you were to ask a person on the street to name some particles (passing by the people who gave you blank stares) I bet that most would name protons and neutrons, and that quarks, Ws and Zs, Higgs bosons, etc would be somewhat further down their list. If this is just a list of elementary particles then it should be called just that. (My comments should not be taken to denigrate the effort that has gone into bringing the list up to the standard that it has already attained, by the way: I just think that it could be even better.) -- ALoan (Talk) 14:53, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        All the particles anyone would mention (other than things like "Vitamin D," "E. Coli," and "Richard Nixon") are on the list. I admit we are insulting charmed, strange mesons, but I don't think they care. The nice thing about Wikipedia, at a certain point, is that you don't have to have all the information on one page, and I think dreadfully boring stuff about meson and baryon masses can go elsewhere. I think most likely we shall have to agree to disagree. -- SCZenz 15:33, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        ("Dreadfully boring"!? More boring than the details of quarks and gauge bosons?) Yes, plenty of particles are mentioned, but they are not given the same treatment. Another strength of Wikipedia is that it is not paper, so we don't run out of space. If it can, shouldn't the list give masses of protons and neutrons and various pions and so on, so we can see them all in one place? I guess we may have to agree to differ. (Btw - what is the mass and charge of a richardnix-on?) -- ALoan (Talk) 16:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        (We understand, to a pretty good degree, where hadron masses come from. We really don't know about the elementary particle masses--we don't have a single theory that predicts them. That's why they're interesting.) Yes, we have infinite space, but pages can be too long. It's better to have subarticles at a certain point, and that's what we've got. (probably 80 kilos, and pretty close to zero) -- SCZenz 16:51, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        (Zero? Several thousand dollars, I should have thought.) Should the list include the proposed weakly interacting massive particle? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:14, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        It presumably does, actually. In Supersymmetric models the light neutralino fills that role, for example, and I think there are others. This does raise the question of what to do with particles that have different names in different contexts. I believe, to be consistent, that WIMP's should not be listed--a WIMP is not a hypothetical particle that appears in a theory, but rather an idea for a particle that might solve certain problems if it existed. (If we'd observed it directly, it would be a different story.) -- SCZenz 14:50, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
OK - having thought it over, I will support it now. -- ALoan (Talk) 03:17, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comment is it just me or it does not look like a list? Renata3 19:36, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, the problem with a straight list in this case is that if you want to include any information beyond just names the particles really fit better into a set of tables based on type. In fact, some of the baryons and mesons not addressed on this list are more naturally grouped on goofy-looking diagrams (see Eightfold way (physics)) rather than in lists or tables. It is a little heavy on text, but I think that was done to avoid a bare list of inscrutable specialized terms, from which the lay reader gains no understanding of even how the list is grouped without lots of clicky clicky on tons of links. — Laura Scudder | Talk 21:21, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]