Particle+Flavour


 * *Three families of particles **

There are six flavours of quarks. The well-known family which is that of electrons (and the electron neutrino) contains up and down quarks. Another family is the muon family, with the muon neutrino and contains strange and charm quarks. The last one is the tau family, with the tau neutrino and contains top and bottom quarks.

They have the same properties such as electrical charge and spin, however they have very different masses. Members of the tau family are heavier than those of the muon family, which are heavier than those of the electron family.

Quarks make up baryons and mesons, which are particles in the standard model which include the pion, proton, anti-proton and neutron. There are about 120 types of baryons.