Editing 2301: Turtle Sandwich Standard Model
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete|Created by a TURTLE EATING A SANDWICH. The original explanation was obviously erroneous and needs to be replaced. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
− | + | This comic references particle physics. The {{w|Standard Model}} of physics explains the base particles and fields that make up the universe. The elementary fermions of the standard model can be laid out in a 3x4 grid, with three "{{w|Generation (particle physics)|generations}}" of matter, each containing a quark with charge +2/3, a quark with charge -1/3, a lepton with charge -1, and a neutrino with charge 0. The first generation contains the familiar up and down quarks, which make protons and neutrons, the electron, and the electron neutrino. Each succeeding generation of matter is more massive than the first, and does not occur naturally on Earth; all more massive particles have only been created and identified in particle accelerator experiments (although they also arguably exist in various extreme places around the universe; for example, the strange quark is suspected to be a component of the denser parts of neutron stars). One of the lines of evidence in favor of the Standard Model is that it predicted the existence and masses of several particles, which have since been confirmed; the {{w|top quark}}'s mass was predicted in 1973, and experimentally verified in 1995, for example, and on the {{w|gauge boson}} side of the chart, the {{w|Higgs boson}} was discovered in 2012. | |
− | In this comic strip, sandwiches (lettuce, cheese, tomato, and possibly other fillings, surrounded by bread) and turtles (an aquatic reptile which wears an armored shell) are | + | In this comic strip, the existence of sandwiches (lettuce, cheese, tomato, and possibly other fillings, surrounded by bread) and turtles (an aquatic reptile which wears an armored shell) are proposed to not be "elementary" entities, but in fact combinations of 4 elementary parts, namely bread, fillings, reptile, and shell. The narrator's lab is looking for the hypothesized "bread-shelled turtle" and "shell-coated sandwich". In the real world, living turtles cannot shed their shells (as is often shown for humor in fiction), as the shell is a part of the turtle's skeleton, so unless the narrator's lab is willing to commit extremely invasive surgery, they will never find a bread-shelled turtle, although they could much more easily take the shell of a dead turtle and put some sandwich fillings inside. |
− | The failure to detect the bread-shelled turtle could be taken as evidence that the turtle-sandwich standard model is flawed -- perhaps turtles and sandwiches are elementary entities, or perhaps the elementary entities that make them are much smaller than is proposed here. There is also the small matter that there are things besides sandwiches and turtles in the universe{{Citation needed}}. Alternatively, it could be taken as evidence that the bread-shelled turtle has an extremely high energy, and so does not exist under typical conditions of our universe. This might be analogous to {{w|magnetic monopole}}s; we would know one if and when we saw one (and many experiments have sought them out), and we believe we know how they would behave, but no such particle has ever been verifiably detected or created. | + | The failure to detect the bread-shelled turtle could be taken as evidence that the turtle-sandwich standard model is flawed -- perhaps turtles and sandwiches are elementary entities, or perhaps the elementary entities that make them are much smaller than is proposed here. There is also the small matter that there are things besides sandwiches and turtles in the universe{{Citation needed}}. Alternatively, it could be taken as evidence that the bread-shelled turtle has an extremely high energy, and so does not exist under typical conditions of our universe. This might be analogous to {{w|magnetic monopole}}s; we would know one if and when we saw one (and many experiments have sought them out), and we believe we know how they would behave, but no such particle has ever been verifiably detected or created. |
− | + | The title text introduces more particle physics jargon, proposing that the "top and bottom" parts of the bread and/or shell have distinct "{{w|Flavour (particle physics)|flavors}}", and that there may be "strange" and "charm" variants as well (a reference to the higher-generation quarks -- strange and charm in the second generation, and top and bottom in the third). | |
− | + | Unlike this standard model, there are no particles predicted by our Standard Model that have not yet been detected; however, there are several gaps between the pure Standard Model and what we observe in reality, most notably the existence of gravity and the apparent asymmetry between the amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe. For this reason, the Standard Model is generally considered to be somehow incomplete. | |
− | + | Comic [[474]] also puns on the flavors of quarks. | |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
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:[Caption below the panel] | :[Caption below the panel] | ||
Our lab is working to detect the two missing pieces of the turtle-sandwich standard model. | Our lab is working to detect the two missing pieces of the turtle-sandwich standard model. | ||
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