01
Binding energy, fission and fusion
Why does iron sit at the bottom of the energy valley?
Advanced · Module 15
Nuclear & Particle Physics
What the atom is made of, what those pieces are made of, and where that regress finally stops — plus the four or five places where it visibly does not stop.
By the end of this module
You can read the Standard Model table and say what each entry is doing there.
0%0 / 6 complete
02
Radioactivity and decay laws
Why is decay exponential, and why can nothing predict a single atom?
Primary source★ LandmarkFree
Nobel Lecture — Radium and the New Concepts in Chemistry ↗Marie Curie, 1911
03
The Standard Model
Why these particles, and why exactly three generations?
InteractiveFree
The Particle Adventure ↗Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Built for exactly this — the structure of matter, without a textbook.
04
Symmetry, gauge theory and the Higgs mechanism
Where does mass come from if the equations forbid it?
Primary source★ LandmarkFree
Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson ↗ATLAS Collaboration, 2012
05
Neutrinos and what the Standard Model misses
What are the known holes in the best theory we have?
Primary source★ LandmarkFree
Nobel Lecture — Neutrino oscillations ↗Kajita & McDonald, 2015
Neutrino mass is the first confirmed crack in the Standard Model.
Check yourself
End-of-module quiz
Every answer comes with the reasoning, not just a verdict. Getting one wrong and reading why is the point.
01Both fission of heavy nuclei and fusion of light nuclei release energy because:
02Radioactive decay is exponential because:
03The Higgs field gives mass to fundamental particles by:
Answer all 3 to finish the module.