Back to main page

CHOOSE ONE!
	The Book
	The LHC experiment
	CERN
	Elementary-Particle Physics
	About the author

Elementary-Particle Physics

For you to have a first taste on elementary-particle physics, we refer you to the excellent site
Particle Physics for beginners

The dodecahedron and modern elementary particle physics

The dodecahedron, one the five Platonic Solids in Timaeus, which appears beautifully in Dali’s “Sacrament of the Last Supper” and “The 4^th Dimension”, corresponds coincidently to the same solution of a certain simple algebraic equation as the Dynkin diagram containing all information about the algebraic group currently offering our best hope towards unification of all fundamental interactions and elementary particles under a single symmetry. However, the importance of Plato's use of the dodecahedron as corresponding to quintessence does not lie in its particular shape, since this has no direct relevance to modern particle physics, but to the fundamental concept of having elementary physical elements with different properties correspond to distinct - although following a common underlying symmetry principle - abstract mathematical entities.

 
Crois-tu que cette vie énorme […],
S’arrête sur l’abîme à l’homme, escarpement ?
Non, elle continue, invincible, admirable,
Entre dans l’invisible et dans l’impondérable,
Y disparaît pour toi, chair vile, emplit l’azur
D’un monde éblouissant, miroir du monde obscur…
 Victor Hugo (1855)