Over the years scientists have discovered a pantheon of new particles.
The etymology of particle physics, sometimes reflect a lineage of scientific thought.
We will briefly discuss the etymology of these particles.
The abbreviation PIE refers to the proto-indo-european, one of the earliest known languages.
Ion:
This name was used by Michael Faraday who made important discoveries, in the realm of electromagnetism.
Ion comes from the Greek word 'ienai'.
It originates from the PIE word 'ei', to go, to walk.
It describes the particles attraction towards opposite charges.
The suffix 'on' derives from 'ion', and appears with the names of many particles.
Fermion: Fermi + on.
Fermions (which include the proton and electron) was named after the physicis Enrico Fermi.
Fermi developed the first statistical formulas that govern fermions.
These are particles that follow the Pauli exclusion principle,
it states that certain particles cannot occupy the same quantum space.
Lepton: Leptos + on.
Leptons are class of particles that includes the electron, muon, tau, and neutrinos.
The name was suggested as a counter part to nucleon.
Nucleon is the name for the particles, that make up the atomic nucleus.
The first known Lepton was the electron.
It is much lighter than a nucleon.
The root word is Greek 'Leptos', which means small, slight, delicate, subtle.
This originates from PIE word 'lep', meaning peel or small shaving.
The root is also shared by the word leprosy, because it causes weakness.
Electron: Electric + on.
Electrons are negatively charged Leptons, that orbit the nucleus of the atom.
It was named to reflect the remarkable fundamental unit of electricity.
The word 'electric' was first used to describe materials with a attractive force.
Electric derives from Latin word 'electricus', which characterises the magnetic attraction of amber when it is rubbed.
It comes from the Greek word 'Elektron', which refers to amber.
Muon: mu + meson.
Muons are members of the lepton family.
They behave like the heavier cousins to electrons.
Mesons is the general term to describe particles with masses between electrons and protons.
'Mu' is an greek alphabet.
Muon was named as one of these intermediate particles.
Scientist found some differences between this particle and other mesons.
So, they shortened the name to Muon.
Tau: Triton.
Tau known as tau lepton.
This particle became the third charged lepton, after the electron and neuron.
Because it was the third, it was called a 'Tau', from the greek triton, which means third.
Neutrino.
The scientist Pauli was studying the problem of missing energy, in a type of particle decay.
He proposed that the energy was being carried away by a neutral particle, that scientist could not detect.
Initially, it was called neutron which derives from Latin 'neuter', which means neither gender, plus 'on'.
Later another neutral particle was discovered, which existed in the nucleus.
The scientist Fermi discovered the original particle, that Pauli had been describing.
To distinguish it from neutron which was more massive, he added the suffix 'ino', which is Italian diminutive.
Neutrinos come in three flavours that correspond to their charged lepton cousins, electron, muon, and tau.
Quarks:
Quarks are elementary particles that form hadrons, such as protons and neutrons.
The name quark was picked up from a novel.
In German quark is likely taken from the word meaning 'to form'.
-It is a reference, to milk solidifying and becoming curd.
Serendipitously the quark is the main constituent of matter.
Scientist have discovered 6 types of quarks.
Up, down, strange, charm, top and bottom.
Up and down quarks are named for their upward and downward isospin,
which is a quantum property of particles related to the strong nuclear force.
Strange quarks were named because they had unusually long life times,
due to some of their decays occurring through the weak force.
Top and bottom quarks were initially called 'truth' and 'beauty'.
Later they retained the initial t and b, and was called top and bottom quarks.
Bosons: Bose + on.
Bosons are named after the scientist Bose.
Along with Einstein Bose developed a theory explaining this type of particle.
It had integer spin and did not obey the Pauli exclusion principle.
Because they do not obey the exclusion principle, they are essentially on top of one another,
or in superposition.
Bosons are a class of particles in the standard model that include force carriers such as photons, and gluons.
Photons: Photo + on.
The term photon became accepted after the scientist Crompton demonstrated that light was quantised.
The idea of light as a particle goes back to Max Plank who wrote about 'packets of energy' as quanta.
Quanta in latin means 'how much'.
Photon derives from the Greek word 'Phos' meaning light,
and the PIE word, 'bha ' meaning to shine.
Higgs Boson: Higgs + boson.
The Higgs Boson is the particle associated with the field that gives elementary particles their mass.
It is named after the scientist Higgs, who is one of the scientists, who predicted its existence.
W Boson: Weak + boson.
W Bosons likely draw their name from the weak nuclear force.
Its called weak, because its field strength over a given distance,
is much weaker than the strong electromagnetic forces.
Z Boson: Zero + boson.
Like W boson, Z boson are mediators for a weak force.
Unlike W bosons, Z bosons have no charge.
Though not explicitly stated, Z was assumed to stand for Zero,
because of the neutral currents lack of charge.
Zero comes from Arabic word 'sifr' meaning nothing.
Sifr is a likely translation of Sanskrit word 'Sunya-m', meaning empty place, desert.
Gluon: Glue + on.
Gluons are mediators of the strong force.
This is force that holds the nucleus together.
Interactions through the strong force,
can be thought of as exchanges of gluons.
Gluons were named for the glue like properties,
and ability to keep the nucleus together.
Glue has its roots in latin word 'gluten', meaning to glue.
Hadron: Hadros + on.
Hadros refers to the heavier partner particles to leptons.
Hadron comes from the Greek word 'Hadros',
meaning thick, bulky, massive.
It was later discovered that hadrons were composite particles,
made up of quarks, surrounded by gluons.
Baryons: Barys + on.
Baryons are a kind of hadrons, that is made of three quarks held together by gluons.
Protons and neutrons, which make up the nucleus of atoms, are both baryons.
Baryons have their root in the Greek word 'Barys', meaning heavy.
Protons: Protos + on.
It was initially believed that hydrogen was the constituent atom for all elements.
It was proposed that the hydrogen atom be called 'protyle', from the Greek word 'protos',
meaning first, and 'hule', meaning material.
This was later proved wrong.
The new particle that was discovered was called as proton,
derived from the same Greek word 'protos', meaning first.
Neutron: Neutral + On.
Neutrons are particles made up of up and down quarks.
It is likely that the name was derived from the root word 'Neutral'.
Mesons: Mesos + on:
Mesons are particles of both the quark and a anti-quark.
These particles had masses between the electron and proton.
The scientist Homi Bhabha suggested a name Meson.
It has the root Greek word 'Mesos'. meaning middle.
Antimatter: Anti + matter.
Particles of matter have partner particles of antimatter.
They share the same mass, but have opposite electrical charge and spin.
When matter and a antimatter pair meets, the particles annihilate.
When the scientist Anderson discovered the anti electron particle,
he called it positron, because of the positive charge.
Later the 'anti' prefix came to be used, for all anti particles.
It derives from the Greek word 'Anti', meaning against.
Matter is derived from the Latin word 'Mater', meaning origin, source, mother.