Helium: Its Synthesis with Elementary Particles from the Deck

This paper describes an educational game—a particle physics Gedanken experiment—where synthesis of helium from elementary particles is performed. The Introduction section presents some of the physics background concerning elementary particles and atomic nuclei. The Material and Methods section expla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Physics teacher 2005-03, Vol.43 (3), p.136-138
Main Authors: Crompton, Nigel E. A., Patterson, Bruce D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This paper describes an educational game—a particle physics Gedanken experiment—where synthesis of helium from elementary particles is performed. The Introduction section presents some of the physics background concerning elementary particles and atomic nuclei. The Material and Methods section explains what is needed for play. The Discussion section describes the rules. Aficionados of the game are welcome to contact the first author with feedback and for a modified version of the rules that also takes the important property of particle spin into consideration.
ISSN:0031-921X
1943-4928
DOI:10.1119/1.1869421