Even scientists can’t keep up with all the newly discovered particles – our new naming scheme could help

By Harry Cliff, Particle physicist, University of Cambridge
Tim Gershon, Professor of Particle Physics, University of Warwick

Physicists at Cern have discovered a plethora of new exotic particles being created in the collisions produced by the Large Hadron Collider over the past few years. So many have been found in fact, that our collaboration (LHCb), which has discovered 59 out of 66 recent particles, has come up with a new naming scheme to help us impose some order on the growing particle zoo

Particle physicists have a rather chequered history when it comes to naming things. As more and more particles were discovered over the course of the…

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