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André David

@DrAndreDavid

Aug 7, 2019

High-energy particle physics exploring the properties and performing measurements of everything smaller than protons and neutrons. It's really peering into what is matter made of. And up to now we found quarks, leptons, and bosons. 📷 texample.net/tikz/examples/

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Why is top quark so much heavier than the other quarks?

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"Why" questions may not be the kind of questions that physics is good at. As an experimentalist, we've measured the top quark mass and it's, well, massive. One of the limitations of the present understanding of particle physics is that...

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...there is no understanding as to how (note how vs. why) any of the quarks and leptons has the mass that we measure them to have. Each quark and lepton mass is a free parameter of the standard model. These masses make up a huge number of the parameters in the SM...

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...denoting a lack of a more fundamental understanding. Anyone with a scientific theory where the masses of all these particles come about with fewer parameters is in for great glory, prizes, and accolades!

JSON Baumgartner

@jasonbaumgartne

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@DrAndreDavid

Great answer. Richard Feynman had a great interview with a reporter once on magnetism and got into the question of "why" in science (quite fascinating). While I understand asking "why" any elementary particle has the energy it does gets into the weeds, it's just always ...

8:29 AM · Aug 7, 2019Twitter Web App

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... fascinated me that the top quark just seemed so outside the realm of comparable energy to the other ones. It just seemed like such a huge outlier.

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It is a huge outlier. Even the Higgs boson is lighter. 😉