the.com/proton
the immortal optimist of physics, positive for at least ten thousand trillion trillion years
means A subatomic particle carrying a positive electric charge, found in the nucleus of every atom and helping define which element it is.
from From the Greek 'protos,' meaning 'first' — the same root behind 'prototype' and 'protocol.' The physicist Ernest Rutherford is credited with naming it in the early 20th century, fittingly choosing a word for 'the first one,' since hydrogen's lone proton is the simplest, foundational building block of matter.
- lifespan
- No proton decay ever observed, despite massive searches
- inner crowd
- Made of three quarks held by gluon glue
- mass source
- Quarks supply only 1% of its weight
- naming
- Rutherford coined it from Greek for first
- hydrogen core
- A lone proton is just hydrogen's nucleus
proton synchrotron at cern — particle accelerator in geneva that operated from 1959-2005, discovered the neutral pion
proton-m rocket — russian heavy-lift launch vehicle used since 1965, carried modules for iss and lunar probes