Elementary Particles

Standard Model of Elementary Particles
The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (1992) defines an elementary particle as "A particle that is not a compound of other particles." By this definition, there are about 500 particles that have been "discovered" in collider experiments. Except for the electron, proton, positron, and antiproton, the "particles" are unstable and exist only for short times. The evidence for such "particles" is the burst of light, the heat given off, or a short track left from a collision between an electron or proton and its corresponding antiparticle (positrons and antiprotons).

Evidently, these short term, transient events are observations of the debris of a violent collision. There seems to be no limit to the number of "particles" that can be discovered as the velocity of the collision is increased. So, quarks were invented and pronounced to be the components of neutrons and protons, making quarks the new elementary particles instead of neutrons and protons. This was just as well, since it was known from the Robson experiment (1951) that a neutron outside the atomic nucleus disintegrates into one electron and one proton. The electron, however, is still considered an elementary particle (although suggestions have been made that it is composed of subquarks).

Despite sensational claims of finding all six types of quarks predicted by modern theory, a quark has never been directly observed, and its existence is known only by inference and correspondence of its expected properties with the light, heat and path generated by a violent collision. It is logically inconsistent, of course, for the electron to be an elementary particle that has no quarks when it is the decay product of a neutron that is supposed to be composed of three quarks.

CSS Elementary Particle
There are only four stable charged particles that are not a compound of other particles. These are the electron, proton, positron and antiproton. A single model, the spinning charged ring, accounts for the observed properties of all four elementary particles. In this model, the structure and shape of the particle are the same, including the ratio of ring diameter to the ring thickness diameter; the size of the ring and its charge each take on two values. In atomic nuclei, a "neutron" is a paired electron and proton.