[YT] The Standard Model of Particle Physics

The Standard Model of Particle Physics is a theory of three of the four known fundamental interactions and the elementary particles that take part in these interactions.

These particles make up all visible matter in the universe. At the broadest level, the elementary particles are divided into three groups

Matter Particles
Gauge Fields (or Force carriers)
The Higgs Boson

Every high energy physics experiment carried out since the mid-20th century has eventually yielded findings consistent with the Standard Model. Still, the Standard Model falls short of being a complete theory of fundamental interactions because it does not include gravitation, dark matter, or dark energy. It is not quite a complete description of leptons either, because it does not describe nonzero neutrino masses, although simple natural extensions do.

At present, matter and energy are best understood in terms of the kinematics and interactions of elementary particles. To date, physics has reduced the laws governing the behavior and interaction of all known forms of matter and energy, to a small set of fundamental laws and theories. A major goal of physics is to find the "common ground" that would unite all of these theories into one integrated theory of everything, of which all the other known laws would be special cases, and from which the behavior of all matter and energy could be derived.

The Standard Model groups two major extant theories — quantum electroweak and quantum chromodynamics — into an internally consistent theory describing the interactions between all experimentally observed particles. The Standard Model describes each type of particle in terms of a mathematical field, via quantum field theory.

The Standard Model includes 12 elementary particles of spin 1⁄2 known as Fermions. According to the spin-statistics theorem, fermions respect the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

Each fermion has a corresponding antiparticle.

The fermions of the Standard Model are classified according to how they interact (or equivalently, by whatcharges they carry). There are six quarks (up, down,charm, strange, top, bottom), and six leptons (electron,electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tauon, tauon neutrino). Pairs from each classification are grouped together to form a generation, with corresponding particles exhibiting similar physical behavior.