Right, so these quarks and leptons then ...

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Can someone please explain these bloody things to me - my 20-year-old physics and chemistry "O" levels are clearly out of date, because I only knew about protons, neutrons, and electrons?

Apparently now it's certain that there are daft things called "ups", "downs", "strange" and "charms", which have postulated masses and electrical charges of fractions of the 1 or -1 order that I was taught about. The thinjgs that they're going to whizz about this version of the circle line in Geneva that are going to wipe us all out.

My daughters are going to be taught this shit in pre-school Physics, and it's becoming apparent to me that I haven't got a bloody clue what anyone's on about.

[hobbes]

Right, so these quarks and leptons then ...

Jim al-Khalili is good for this sort of thing. His books "Quantum" and "Atom" should give you the heads up.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Right, so these quarks and leptons then ...

No, you misunderstand my meaning. I'm not about to go back and read bloody books on the subject, I did that when I was 16 studying for my "O" Levels in the first place.

I want someone to explain to me what all these leptons and antineutrinos are , in one neatly-packaged OTF-sized article, so I can pretend I know what the fuck it's all about. Like I did when I read the back 3 pages of that physics textbook all those years ago that got me through the last exams ...

[Stumpy Pepys]

Right, so these quarks and leptons then ...

Well, here's my understanding for what it's worth.

Atoms are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons.

Protons and neutrons are made of up and down quarks (up and down quarks make up most of the matter in the universe). There are four other types of quark (top, bottom, strange and charmed), but these are rather exotic. Quarks are held together by particles called gluons.

Electrons are a type of lepton. Other leptions are muon and tau particles and their associated neutrinos, of which I know nothing at all.