What Is The Smallest Particle We Know?

We have built beautiful particle accelerators in the search for particles that are even more elementary than electrons, protons, and neutrons.

The accelerators smash subatomic particles at enormous speeds, which causes them to shatter into their constituents. It is similar to studying the inner mechanisms of television by throwing it from the top of a 20-story building and scrutinizing its broken components. When physicists first began colliding electrons with protons, they observed that electrons bounced off three small hard cores inside the proton. The cores were found to be even smaller particles that make up the proton. These elementary particles are called Quarks, and the discovery of quarks meant that protons and neutrons werent fundamental anymore.