Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Emc2 on 04/09/2012 05:29:25

Title: What is the smallest possible thing in the universe?
Post by: Emc2 on 04/09/2012 05:29:25
Interesting article....


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19434856
Title: Re: What is the smallest possible thing in the universe?
Post by: waytogo on 22/09/2012 23:10:45
light
Title: Re: What is the smallest possible thing in the universe?
Post by: neilep on 23/09/2012 06:00:25
Quote from: Emc2 on 04/09/2012 05:29:25
Interesting article....


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19434856


RELATED TO THE ABOVE:

BBC's Horizon here in the UK did produce a fascinating programme...here's a link to it's page..not too sure iof it available to non UKers !...but it has some nice clips http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mmrc0
Title: Re: What is the smallest possible thing in the universe?
Post by: CliffordK on 23/09/2012 11:49:55
Looking at the fundamental particles. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_particles)

They are all pretty damn small.  The photon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon) is near the bottom of the list, listed as having a "Mass" of <1×10−18 eV/c2

The Gluon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon) is listed with a "Mass" of < 0.0002 eV/c2  (of course, it is defining a range, and not an exact value).

The Electron Nutrino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_neutrino) is listed as the mass simply being "Small but non-zero".

So, do we know the photon is the smallest particle discovered so far?