Particle

In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older

texts) is a small localized object which can be described by
several physical or chemical properties, such as volume,
density, or mass.[1][2] They vary greatly in size or quantity,
from subatomic particles like the electron, to microscopic
particles like atoms and molecules, to macroscopic particles
like powders and other granular materials. Particles can also
be used to create scientific models of even larger objects
depending on their density, such as humans moving in a
crowd or celestial bodies in motion.

The term particle is rather general in meaning, and is refined

as needed by various scientific fields. Anything that is
composed of particles may be referred to as being
particulate.[3] However, the noun particulate is most Arc welders need to protect themselves
frequently used to refer to pollutants in the Earth's from welding sparks, which are heated
atmosphere, which are a suspension of unconnected particles, metal particles that fly off the welding
surface.
rather than a connected particle aggregation.

Conceptual properties
The concept of particles is especially useful when modelling nature, as
the full treatment of many phenomena can be complex and also involve
difficult computation.[4] It can be used to make simplifying assumptions
concerning the processes involved. Francis Sears and Mark Zemansky,
in University Physics, give the example of calculating the landing
location and speed of a baseball thrown in the air. They gradually strip
the baseball of most of its properties, by first idealizing it as a rigid
Particles are often
smooth sphere, then by neglecting rotation, buoyancy and friction,
represented as dots. This
ultimately reducing the problem to the ballistics of a classical point
figure could represent the
movement of atoms in a gas, particle.[5] The treatment of large numbers of particles is the realm of
people in crowds or stars in statistical physics.[6]
the night sky.

Size
The term "particle" is usually applied differently to three classes of sizes. The term macroscopic particle,
usually refers to particles much larger than atoms and molecules. These are usually abstracted as point-
like particles, even though they have volumes, shapes, structures, etc. Examples of macroscopic particles
would include powder, dust, sand, pieces of debris during a car accident, or even objects as big as the
stars of a galaxy.[7][8]
Another type, microscopic particles usually refers to
particles of sizes ranging from atoms to molecules,
such as carbon dioxide, nanoparticles, and colloidal
particles. These particles are studied in chemistry, as
well as atomic and molecular physics.

The smallest particles are the subatomic particles,

which refer to particles smaller than atoms.[9] These
would include particles such as the constituents of
atoms – protons, neutrons, and electrons – as well as
other types of particles which can only be produced in
particle accelerators or cosmic rays. These particles
are studied in particle physics.
Galaxies are so large that stars can be
considered particles relative to them.
Because of their extremely small size, the study of
microscopic and subatomic particles falls in the realm
of quantum mechanics. They will exhibit phenomena demonstrated in the particle in a box model,[10][11]
including wave–particle duality,[12][13] and whether particles can be considered distinct or identical[14][15]
is an important question in many situations.

Composition
Particles can also be classified according to composition. Composite
particles refer to particles that have composition – that is particles
which are made of other particles.[16] For example, a carbon-14 atom
is made of six protons, eight neutrons, and six electrons. By contrast,
elementary particles (also called fundamental particles) refer to
particles that are not made of other particles.[17] According to our
current understanding of the world, only a very small number of these
exist, such as leptons, quarks, and gluons. However it is possible that
some of these might be composite particles after all, and merely
appear to be elementary to scientists now.[18] While composite
A proton is composed of three particles can very often be considered point-like, although having
quarks and held together with internal structure, elementary particles have so far been found to have
the strong interaction. no structure.[19]

Stability
Both elementary (such as muons) and composite particles (such as uranium nuclei), are known to undergo
particle decay. Those that do not are called stable particles, such as the electron or a helium-4 nucleus.
The lifetime of stable particles can be either infinite or large enough to hinder attempts to observe such
decays. In the latter case, those particles are called "observationally stable". In general, a particle decays
from a high-energy state to a lower-energy state by emitting some form of radiation, such as the emission
of photons.
N-body simulation
In computational physics, N-body simulations (also called N-particle simulations) are simulations of
dynamical systems of particles under the influence of certain conditions, such as being subject to
gravity.[20] These simulations are common in cosmology and computational fluid dynamics.

N refers to the number of particles considered. As simulations with higher N are more computationally
intensive, systems with large numbers of actual particles will often be approximated to a smaller number
of particles, and simulation algorithms need to be optimized through various methods.[20]

Distribution of particles
Colloidal particles are the components of a
colloid. A colloid is a substance
microscopically dispersed evenly throughout
another substance.[21] Such colloidal system
can be solid, liquid, or gaseous; as well as
continuous or dispersed. The dispersed-phase
particles have a diameter of between
approximately 5 and 200 nanometers.[22]
Soluble particles smaller than this will form a
Examples of a stable and of an unstable colloidal
solution as opposed to a colloid. Colloidal
dispersion.
systems (also called colloidal solutions or
colloidal suspensions) are the subject of
interface and colloid science. Suspended solids may be held in a liquid, while solid or liquid particles
suspended in a gas together form an aerosol. Particles may also be suspended in the form of atmospheric
particulate matter, which may constitute air pollution. Larger particles can similarly form marine debris or
space debris. A conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles may be described as a granular
material.

See also
Antiparticle Particle detector
Brownian motion Particle physics
Corpuscularianism Particle physics and representation
Fluid parcel theory
List of particles Wigner's classification
Matter Particle segregation
Mechanics Self-propelled particle
Particle counter Wave–particle duality

References
 1. "Particle" ([Link] AMS Glossary. American
Meteorological Society. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
2. "Particle" ([Link] Oxford English
Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005.
3. Lambe, T. W.; Whitman, R. V. (1969). Soil Mechanics ([Link]
cs00lamb/page/18). John Wiley & Sons. p. 18 ([Link]
mb/page/18). ISBN 978-0-471-51192-2. "The word 'particulate' means 'of or pertaining to a
system of particles'."
4. Sears, F. W.; Zemansky, M. W. (1964). "Equilibrium of a Particle". University Physics
(3rd ed.). Addison-Wesley. pp. 26–27. LCCN 63015265 ([Link]
5. F. W. Sears; M. W. Zemansky (1964). "Equilibrium of a Particle". University Physics
(3rd ed.). Addison-Wesley. p. 27. LCCN 63015265 ([Link] "A body
whose rotation is ignored as irrelevant is called a particle. A particle may be so small that it
is an approximation to a point, or it may be of any size, provided that the action lines of all
the forces acting on it intersect in one point."
6. Reif, F. (1965). "Statistical Description of Systems of Particles" ([Link]
ndamentalsofst00fred/page/47). Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics. McGraw-
Hill. pp. 47ff ([Link] ISBN 978-0-07-
051800-1.
7. Dubinski, J. (2003). "Galaxy Dynamics and Cosmology on Mckenzie" ([Link]
g/web/20211102083552/[Link] Canadian Institute
for Theoretical Astrophysics. Archived from the original ([Link]
i/nbody/) on 2021-11-02. Retrieved 2011-02-24.
8. Coppola, G.; La Barbera, F.; Capaccioli, M. (2009). "Sérsic galaxy with Sérsic halo models
of early-type galaxies: A tool for N-body simulations" ([Link]
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 121 (879): 437. arXiv:0903.4758 (htt
ps://[Link]/abs/0903.4758). Bibcode:2009PASP..121..437C ([Link]
u/abs/2009PASP..121..437C). doi:10.1086/599288 ([Link]
9. "Subatomic particle" ([Link]
[Link]/subatomic-particle). [Link]. Archived from the original ([Link]
[Link]/subatomic-particle) on 2011-03-05. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
10. Eisberg, R.; Resnick, R. (1985). "Solutions of Time-Independent Schroedinger Equations" (h
ttps://[Link]/details/quantumphysicsof00eisb/page/214). Quantum Physics of Atoms,
Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, Ions, Compounds and Particles (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
pp. 214–226 ([Link] ISBN 978-0-
471-87373-0.
11. Reif, F. (1965). "Quantum Statistics of Ideal Gases – Quantum States of a Single Particle".
Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics ([Link]
st00fred). McGraw-Hill. pp. vii–x. ISBN 978-0-07-051800-1.
12. Eisberg, R.; Resnick, R. (1985). "Photons—Particlelike Properties of Radiation" ([Link]
[Link]/details/quantumphysicsof00eisb/page/26). Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules,
Solids, Nuclei, and Particles (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 26–54 ([Link]
tails/quantumphysicsof00eisb/page/26). ISBN 978-0-471-87373-0.
13. Eisberg, R.; Resnick, R. (1985). "de Broglie's Postulate—Wavelike Properties of Particles"
([Link] Quantum Physics of Atoms,
Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 55–84 ([Link]
[Link]/details/quantumphysicsof00eisb/page/55). ISBN 978-0-471-87373-0.
14. Reif, F. (1965). "Quantum Statistics of Ideal Gases – Identical Particles and Symmetry
Requirements" ([Link] Fundamentals
of Statistical and Thermal Dynamics. McGraw-Hill. pp. 331ff ([Link]
amentalsofst00fred/page/331). ISBN 978-0-07-051800-1.
15. Reif, F. (1965). "Quantum Statistics of Ideal Gases – Physical Implications of the Quantum-
Mechanical Enumeration of States" ([Link]
353). Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Dynamics. McGraw-Hill. pp. 353–360 (http
s://[Link]/details/fundamentalsofst00fred/page/353). ISBN 978-0-07-051800-1.
16. "Composite particle" ([Link]
[Link]/composite-particle). [Link]. Archived from the original ([Link]
[Link]/composite-particle) on 2010-11-15. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
17. "Elementary particle" ([Link]
[Link]/elementary-particle). [Link]. Archived from the original ([Link]
[Link]/elementary-particle) on 2010-10-14. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
18. D'Souza, I. A.; Kalman, C. S. (1992). Preons: Models of Leptons, Quarks and Gauge
Bosons as Composite Objects. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-02-1019-9.
19. US National Research Council (1990). "What is an elementary particle?" ([Link]
[Link]/books?id=nRqq7Lov7IwC&pg=PA19). Elementary-Particle Physics. US National
Research Council. p. 19. ISBN 0-309-03576-7.
20. Graps, A. (20 March 2000). "N-Body / Particle Simulation Methods" ([Link]
web/20010405071844/[Link] Archived from the original
([Link] on 5 April 2001. Retrieved 2019-04-18.
21. "Colloid" ([Link] Encyclopædia
Britannica. 1 July 2014. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
22. Levine, I. N. (2001). Physical Chemistry ([Link]
1) (5th ed.). McGraw-Hill. p. 955 ([Link]
55). ISBN 978-0-07-231808-1.

Further reading
"What is a particle?" ([Link]
[Link]). University of Florida, Particle Engineering Research Center. 23 July 2010. Archived
from the original ([Link] on 23 September 2015. Retrieved
10 September 2015.
Griffiths, D. J. (2008). Introduction to Particle Physics (2nd ed.). Wiley-VCH. ISBN 978-3-
527-40601-2.
Alonso, M.; Finn, E. J. (1967). "Dynamics of a particle". Fundamental University Physics,
Volume 1. Addison-Wesley. LCCN 66010828 ([Link]
Alonso, M.; Finn, E. J. (1967). "Dynamics of a system of particles". Fundamental University
Physics, Volume 1. Addison-Wesley. LCCN 66010828 ([Link]
Segal, S. (n.d.). "What is a Particle? – Definition & Theory" ([Link]
n/[Link]). High School Chemistry: Help and Review.
[Link]. Chapter 4, Lesson 6.
"A basic guide to particle characterization" ([Link]
tps://[Link]/sites/default/files/uploads/Other_Inst/Particle%20Size/Particle%20
Characterization%[Link]) (PDF). Malvern Instruments. 2015. Archived from the
original ([Link]
ticle%20Characterization%[Link]) (PDF) on 2020-09-20. Retrieved 2016-11-04.

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