Reading...
Play button
Play button
Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
20 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
|
One of the classes of "fundamental particles" (meaning that they cannot be broken down into smaller particles). There are six "flavors": the electron, the muon, the tauon, the electron neutrino (usually just called "the" neutrino), the muon neutrino, and the tauon neutrino. The three neutrinos are neutral (and were once thought to be massless), while the other three have a charge of -1. All neutrinos are fermions and the total number of leptons is conserved (counting regular leptons as +1 particle and anti-leptons as -1 particle). The word comes from the Greek for "light" (as in "not heavy"), even though the muon and tauon are fairly massive.
|
lepton
|
|
|
A class of fundamental particle. They also come in six flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top (sometimes, "truth"), and bottom (sometimes, "beauty"). The up, charm, and top have a charge of +2/3, while the down, strange, and bottom have a charge of -1/3. All are fermions and they combine in pairs to form mesons and in triples to form baryons. The enormous mass of the top (178 GeV) made it difficult to create in particle accelerators, but its discovery in 1995 confirmed an essential element of the "Standard Model" of particle physics. The name comes from the line "Three [BLANK] for Muster Mark" in Finnegans Wake that appealed to Murray Gell-Mann. The study of these (and the strong nuclear force) is quantum chromodynamics.
|
quarks
|
|
|
Composite (i.e., non-fundamental) particles made from three quarks. The most common examples are the proton (two up quarks and one down quark) and the neutron (two down quarks and one up). All of these composite particles are fermions. Quarks possess a characteristic called "color" (which has nothing to do with visual color) which can be either red, green, or blue (which are arbitrary names). One of these composite particles must have one quark of each color so that the "total color" (analogous to mixing red, green, and blue light) is colorless (i.e., "white"). The word comes from the Greek for "heavy."
|
baryons
|
|
|
Composite particles generally made from a quark and an anti-quark. There are dozens of examples including the pion, kaon, J/Psi, Rho, and D. All of these composite particles are bosons. The quark and anti-quark must have the same color (such as red and anti-red) so that the resulting particle is colorless (or "white"). It is also possible to make one of these out of two (or more) quarks and the same number of anti-quarks, but this kind of particle (a "tetraquark") is rare, both in nature and in quiz bowl.
|
mesons
|
|
|
Particles with half-integral spin. Spin is a form of "intrinsic angular momentum" which is possessed by particles as if they were spinning around their axis (but, in fact, they aren't). The values cited for spin are not (usually) the real magnitude of that angular momentum, but the component of the angular momentum along one axis. Quantum mechanics restricts that component to being n/2 times Planck's constant divided by 2 pi for some integer n. If n is even, this results in "integral" spin, if it is odd, it results in "half-integral" spin. Note that the exact value of the spin itself is a real number; it's the multiplier of h/2pi that determines whether it is "integral" or not. The most significant thing about these particles is that they are subject to the Pauli Exclusion Principle: No two fermions can have the same quantum numbers (i.e., same state). The name comes from that of the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi.
|
fermions
|
|
|
Particles with integral spin. All particles are either one of these particles or fermions. The spin of a composite particle is determined by the total spin (i.e., the component of its intrinsic angular momentum along one axis) of its particles. For instance, an alpha particle (two protons and two neutrons) has four half-integral spin values. No matter how they are added up, the result will be an integral spin value (try it!), so an alpha particle is a (composite) one of these. The Pauli Exclusion Principle does not apply to these (in fact, these particles prefer to be in the same quantum state). The name comes from that of the Indian-American physicist Satyendra Nath Bose.
|
bosons
|
|
|
Any particles made out of quarks (alternatively, any particle affected by the strong nuclear force). Generally, this means the baryons and the mesons. All of these particles are colorless (in the sense of the combined color of their constituent quarks). The name comes from the Greek for "thick."
|
hadrons
|
|
|
Fundamental bosons that carry the forces of nature. That is, forces result from particles emitting and absorbing these particles. The strong nuclear force is carried by gluons, the weak nuclear force is carried by the W, Z-, and Z+ particles, the electromagnetic force is carried by the photon, and gravity is carried by the (as yet unobserved) graviton. The name comes from the role of "gauge theories" in describing the forces (which are beyond the scope of this article).
|
gague bosons
|
|
|
The gauge bosons that carry the strong nuclear force and bind hadrons together. They have no charge and no mass, but do have color (in the sense of quarks). This color cannot be observed directly because they are part of the larger hadron. The name comes from their role in "gluing" quarks together.
|
gluons
|
|
|
Their older name was used for the "internal parts" of hadrons before the discovery and widespread acceptance of the quark model. Models based on these particles are still used but, for the most part, it was determined that these particles were quarks and the term is rarely used at the high school level except in historical contexts.
|
partons
|
|
|
(1928-present, Colombia; Nobel Prize for Literature 1982). The master of magic realism, his birthplace of Aracataca was the model for the fictional town of Macondo. The town played a prominent role in many of his works, such as LEAF STORM and his seminal novel, ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE (1967), which details the decline of the Buendía family over seven generations. A newspaper journalist in the 1950s, he exposed a naval scandal (chronicled in THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECKED SAILOR). Other prominent novels include IN EVIL HOUR, LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, and THE GENERAL IN HIS LABYRINTH, a depiction of Simón Bolívar's final years.
|
Gabriel García Marquez
|
|
|
(1904-1973, Chile; Nobel 1971). Born Neftalí Reyes, he adopted the surname of a 19th century Czech poet. Gabriela Mistral was the head of his school in the small city of Temuco. 1923 saw the publication of his best-known work, TWENTY LOVE POEMS and a SONG OF DESPAIR, which led to diplomatic appointments. As a penniless consul in Burma in the 1930s, he wrote the surrealist collection RESIDENCE ON EARTH. He served in the Chilean senate in the 1940s, though government opponents forced him into exile over his Communist views. Crossing the Andes on horseback inspired his epic CANTO GENERAL (1950). He died of cancer days after his friend Salvador Allende was executed.
|
Pablo Neruda
|
|
|
(1899-1986, Argentina). One-quarter English,he learned that language before he learned Spanish. Educated in Europe during World War I, he met a circle of avant-garde poets in Spain, which inspired him to found the ultraismo movement and publish the collection FERVOR OF BUENOS AIRES (1923) when he returned to Argentina. While working in a library, he developed his greatest short stories, collected in A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF INFAMY (1935), FICCIONES (1944), and THE ALEPH(1949). By his fifties, a disorder inherited from his father had taken his eyesight, but in 1962 he completed the influential story collection LABYRINTHS.
|
Jorge Luis Borges
|
|
|
(1942-present, Chile). Actually born in Peru, at age three she moved to her mother's native Chile. A successful news reporter in her twenties, she and her family fled to Venezuela after General Augusto Pinochet deposed and executed her uncle setting up a dictatorship. Her formal literary career began at age 40, when she published THE HOUSE OF SPIRITS, a magic realist work that chronicles several generations of the Trueba family. Other works of fiction include the short-story collection EVA LUNA (1989) and PAULA (1995), which detailed her care for her terminally ill daughter.
|
Isabel Allende
|
|
|
(1889-1957, Chile; Nobel 1945). The first Latin American to win the Nobel Literature Prize, she was actually named Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, but took her pen name from an Italian poet and a French poet. At first a prominent educator, she wrote "SONNETS OF DEATH" (1914) after the suicide of her fiancé. Those sonnets later appeared in her most famous collection, DESOLATION (1922). A native Chilean, she served as a diplomat both in the United States and Europe. Langston Hughes translated a portion of her poetry into English just after she died.
|
Gabriela Mistral
|
|
|
(1914-1998, Mexico; Nobel 1990). A prominent poet and essayist, he supported leftist causes in Mexico; he fought briefly for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. He published the poetry collection LUNA SILVESTRE at age 19, and his 584-line poem THE SUN STONE deals with the planet Venus, an important symbol to the Aztecs. While studying in Los Angeles,he observed flamboyantly dressed Mexican-American pachucos ("zoot-suiters"), who inspired him to write about Mexico and its Native American/mestizo heritage in his pivotal essay collection, THE LABYRINTH OF SOLITUDE(1950). Another prose work, IN THE LIGHT OF INDIA (1997), reflected his part-(East) Indian heritage.
|
Octavio Paz
|
|
|
(1853-1895, Cuba). Best known as a poet and a revolutionary, he fought tirelessly for Cuban independence. Imprisoned at age sixteen and exiled from the island several times, he settled in New York for the last fifteen years of his life, where he wrote essays on Walt Whitman, Jesse James, and the threat of Latin American economic dependence on the United States. His ILL-OMENED FRIENDSHIP (1885) is considered the first Spanish modernist novel, and his poetry collections include OUR AMERICA and SIMPLE VERSES; the poem "GUANTANAMERA" was the inspiration for several songs. He was killed in a skirmish at Dos Ríos while participating in an invasion with other Cuban exiles.
|
José Martí
|
|
|
(1936-present, Peru). While attending military school in Lima, he wrote the play THE ESCAPE OF THE INCA (1952), but the harsh treatment he received there was the basis for his best-known novel, THE TIME OF THE HERO. CONVERSATION IN THE CATHEDRAL (1969) was his serious take on living under the dictatorship of Manuel Odría, while in 1977 he published the lighter, autobiographical AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER, about soap operas. Other important works include THE WAR OF THE END OF THE WORLD and A FISH IN THE WATER, which discusses his political career; he ran for president of Peru in 1990 but was defeated by Alberto Fujimori.
|
Mario Vargas Llosa
|
|
|
(1899-1974, Guatemala; Nobel 1967). He left his native Guatemala in 1923 to study in Paris. There he discovered Mayan mythology, and translated the Popol Vuh into Spanish; the theme would pervade his work, such as 1963's MULATA DE TAL. He most famous novel, EL SENOR PRESIDENTE (1946), was a satire against the oppressive Guatalemalan dictatorship. He also completed a trilogy that blasted exploitation by the American-led United Fruit Company, and the short-story collection WEEKEND IN GUATEMALA 1956), based on the CIA-led overthrow of president Jacobo Arbenz's liberal government.
|
Miguel Asturias
|
|
|
(1928-present, Mexico). Though born into a well-to-do family, he has often dealt with the betrayed ideals from the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the subject of both his first novel, WHERE THE AIR IS CLEAR(1958), and his most successful book,THE DEATH OF ARTEMIO CRUZ (1962). Other notable novels include TERRA NOSTRA, set during the reign of King Philip II of Spain, and THE OLD GRINGO, which portrays Ambrose Bierce's last days in Mexico. He has also penned absurdist plays and essay collections on Mexican and American art and literature.
|
Carlos Fuentes
|
