As near as I can tell, particle physics goes something like this:
The basic unit of matter is the atom.
Atoms are made of subatomic particles.
Subatomic particles are made out of energy.
Energy is made out of mathematics.
So, what’s the smallest thing we’ve observed, what’s the smallest we’ve theorized, and what the heck are they “made of”?
Dee da dee da dee dee do do / Dee ba ditty doh / Deedle dooby doo ba dee um bee ooby / Be doodle oodle doodle dee doh http://members.xoom.com/labradorian/
Lab, you might consider taking a physics course. I think you’d enjoy it and you’d get a better understanding of the things you ask.
As for the thing you describe…welll
An atom is the smallest unit of an element that still retains chemical properties, it’s not the basic unit of matter by a longshot. Beyond protons, neutrons and electrons things get pretty interesting so here’s a couple of places to start http://pc65.frontier.osrhe.edu/hs/science/psubatm.htm and http://researchmag.asu.edu/articles/subatomic.html
Nothing is made from mathematics, only described by it. A good argument can be made that matter and energy are not two different things as there are lots of ways to convert one to the other.
Go and learn. You’ll find more satisfaction exploring the physical world than from getting the answers from the back of the book.
I don’t have a degree in quantum physics, but I’ve read a lot about it over the years.
Note: Atoms are not ab basic unit. Atoms are 2-3 levels of structure up from the basic forms of ‘matter’.
Strictly speaking, according to the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, we don’t observe particles. What we observe is the effect that the existentially unknowable quantum world has on our experimental apparatus.
In sort, we have a model to predict the outcome of experiments, but that model does not imply a metaphysical interpretation of the underlying events.
‘{articles’: quarks, electrons, photons, etc. are artifacts of the model; a strict interpretation of the model implies that we are not talking about actual items in objective reality.
For one, ‘particles’ do not obey the rules we ordinarily ascribe to ordinary objects: They don’t have a definite state when they’re not being ‘measured’, and the type of measurement makes certain states ‘come into being’ and other states ‘go away’.
The fact that QM is so good about predicting the outcome of experiments and yet requires such outlandish assumptions about the nature of objective reality that most physicists today don’t worry about whether particles are really there or not; they just apply the mathematics, predict the results of experiments, and make cool stuff like transistors.
Of course, some physicists aren’t satisfied with such metaphysical wishy-washiness. Scientists aren’t necessarily satisfied with just prediction experiments, they want to know what’s really going on.
He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’
The smallest things I’m aware of are neutrinos, which have been discussed here recently. They may or may not have mass, they’re very common but interact very weakly with other particles. They seem to come in 3 flavors, which might change as they age.
You can’t apply large-scale rules, like newton’s laws, to small scale (subatomic) particles or events. Most of the atomic-level science I learned in high school 25 years ago is no longer considered “correct”, but we will probably look back in another 25 years and say the same thing. The hardest thing for me about QM is the lack of “intuition”, it all seems to revolve around math, which doesn’t provide an interpretation, just results.
As far as I understand it, electrons and quarks seem to be point particles, that is they have no measurable extension in space and no internal components. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are fundamental, but it is a good indication that they are about as fundamental as we’re going to get.
In addition there are theoretical reasons to suppose that there are no undiscovered families of leptons and quarks, further indicating that we’re approaching some sort of limit in researching the very small.
Discarded statements that we have reached the end of physics litter the history of the subject and I’m not suggesting that is the case. But we may have reached the end of the search for the ever smaller.
“Cheddar?”
“We don’t get much call for that around here, Sir.”