Standard Model
It describes electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions among known elementary particles. This topic is part of Particle Physics within Science & Nature. This page currently draws on 13 supporting questions, with answers and bonus facts available below.
Standard Model trivia questions
The Standard Model is a theory describing what?
Answer: Elementary particles and three fundamental forces
Bonus fact: It describes electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions among known elementary particles.
Which fundamental force is not successfully incorporated into the Standard Model?
Answer: Gravity
Bonus fact: Reconciling gravity with quantum theory remains one of the biggest open problems in physics.
Which particle discovered at CERN completed the Standard Model's long-predicted particle roster?
Answer: The Higgs boson
Bonus fact: The Higgs field helps explain why W and Z bosons and many matter particles have mass.
How many neutrino flavors are recognized in the Standard Model?
Answer: Three
Bonus fact: The three neutrino flavors are electron, muon, and tau, and neutrinos can oscillate between them.
The strange quark is one of how many quark flavors in the Standard Model?
Answer: Six
Bonus fact: The six flavors are up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.
Which force remains outside the Standard Model and is therefore a major obstacle to a theory of everything?
Answer: Gravity
Bonus fact: General relativity describes gravity extremely well on large scales, while quantum theory governs microscopic physics.
The charm quark belongs to which family of elementary particles?
Answer: Quarks
Bonus fact: Charm is one of six quark flavors in the Standard Model.
The top quark is one of the fundamental particles known as what?
Answer: Quarks
Bonus fact: It is one of six quark flavors in the Standard Model.
The bottom quark is one of the particles known as what?
Answer: Quarks
Bonus fact: Bottom is one of the six quark flavors in the Standard Model.
Which modern theory of particle physics is formulated using quantum field theory?
Answer: The Standard Model
Bonus fact: The Standard Model uses quantum fields to describe quarks, leptons, gauge bosons, and the Higgs field.
What is the name of the theory that organizes known elementary particles and three fundamental forces?
Answer: The Standard Model
Bonus fact: The Standard Model successfully describes electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions but does not include gravity.
Supersymmetry proposes a partner particle for what?
Answer: Every known fundamental particle
Bonus fact: The proposed partners differ in quantum spin from the particles of the Standard Model.