Standard Model Changes
Bugs are spin 1/2 particles, unless it's particularly windy.
Bugs are spin 1/2 particles, unless it's particularly windy.
In this comic, Randall proposes some changes to the Standard Model of particle physics. The currently accepted particle table has 17 slots: 12 fermions (first 3 columns of the table - six quarks [top two rows] and six leptons [bottom two rows]) and five bosons (last two columns of the table - four-gauge bosons [left hand column] and one scalar boson [right hand column]). This is another comic containing red annotations over a complex and established structure.
While the Standard Model's predictions are very well supported by experiments, the physics community has identified several flaws in it (e.g. it lacks any particles to convey gravity), and so lots of research is committed to searching for "Physics beyond the Standard Model". Some of Randall's changes are sort of intended to fill some of those gaps, but for the most part they are nonsensical (although not quite as much as the Turtle Sandwich Standard Model or Fixion).
Quarks
Randall's proposed changes to the quarks are relatively restrained -- he proposes only that the "strange" and "charm" names should be moved to bosons, while the strange quark should be renamed the "right quark" and the charm quark should be renamed the "left quark", so that all quarks will have "ordinary" directional names.
In reality, the original quark model proposed by Murray Gell-Mann included only three quarks, with the "strange" quark so named because the particles that contained them were strangely long-lived relative to their masses. The "charm" quark was so named when it was proposed because it brought a "charming" symmetry to the weak interaction, which we now understand is because it completes the second generation of quarks, along with the strange quark. When a third generation of quarks was proposed, they were called top and bottom by analogy to the up and down quarks (which are so named because of the isospin they carry), though the names 'truth' and 'beauty' were briefly in competition, and colliders working with B quarks are sometimes even now called "Beauty Factories".
Randall likely applied "left" to "charm" and "right" to "strange" simply due to the placement of the particles in the table: In the American English vernacular, the phrase "left and right" is more common than "right and left", in the same way that "top and bottom" is more common than "bottom and top", and "up and down" is more common than "down and up". So he placed "left" above "right" to match the ordering of the other quark generations.
Leptons
While Randall leaves two leptons, the electron and the muon, untouched, he has opted to discard the tau lepton entirely. Each of these three leptons has an associated neutrino; Randall has decided to discard all but the electron neutrino, as he has decided that three are too many neutrino types. He has also replaced the standard symbol for the neutrino, the Greek letter ν (nu), with a capital N, in order to avoid confusion between ν and v, the two letters appearing similar, though this might further be confused with nucleon (particle physicists commonly use N to denote "proton or neutron", and excited states of nucleons are given the symbol N, followed by the mass in parenthesis[1]) or possibly even with the symbol for Nitrogen (the atomic nucleus with 7 protons and a similar number of neutrons, encountered more in radiology/chemistry as an N, 7N, 14N, N+, N2 and other variations).
In place of one of the neutrinos, Randall has introduced a new elementary particle that supposedly explains the existence of dark matter. The nature of dark matter is one of the most famous mysteries in physics: galaxies seem to have much higher gravity than their detectable matter would account for, yet this mysterious form of matter does not seem to interact with other matter in any other detectable way. Neutrinos are known for rarely interacting with other matter, due to their lack of charge, which could justify Randall's decision, but even the little interaction that neutrinos have with the weak force rules them out as candidates for dark matter. Hypothetical sterile neutrinos could be the source of dark matter, and also for the small but nonzero masses of the familiar neutrinos, but no such particles have yet been identified. Together with the arrow, the only one in the comic that points at the particle's box rather than the symbol, the triumphant exclamation "We found it!" probably means that the new "dark matter" entry in the table is the dark matter particle.
Bosons
Randall proposes several new names for existing particles. First, that the W and Z bosons should be renamed to the charm and strange bosons, respectively (taking the names from the quarks), and second, that the Higgs boson should be named the Vin Diesel boson, as he considers Peter Higgs's name to be too boring to be given to a particle. The Higgs boson is known in the popular press (to the chagrin of many physicists, including Higgs) as "The God Particle", which is certainly a flashy name, but which itself was changed by the editors of the book of the same name from its authors' originally-intended title: The Goddamn Particle.
Randall inserts the graviton, a purely theoretical particle, noting that its inclusion is "probably fine". While the graviton has never been observed, it is occasionally included in diagrams of the standard model to show its hypothetical place, which likely convinced Randall to do the same. Here it is shown below the Higgs boson, implying to be a scalar boson, though it is theoretically a 2nd-order tensor boson (with a spin of 2) and is usually given its own column.
Randall also proposes that a false decoy "Magic" particle should be added to the Standard Model, to trip up promoters of quantum mysticism. Presumably, anyone who invokes this particle to support their claims will expose themselves as a fraud, much as cartographers will print trap streets on their maps to catch plagiarism.
Finally, Randall adds "Cool bugs" as a fundamental particle, with an explanation of "Very small bugs are fundamental particles now". In reality, a typical ladybug contains about 23 sextillion quarks and electrons.
The title text builds on the "Cool bugs" entry, joking about what spin bugs would have if they were a fundamental particle. Having a 1/2 spin unless it's windy may suggest that bugs may be resistant to air flow around them until it reaches a high velocity.
