Question

What is the smallest thing in the universe?

Answer 1

Hint:Consider an atom in which the electrons are revolving around the atom with the nucleus at the centre containing the protons and neutrons which are the combination of subatomic particles.

Complete step by step solution:
At first, atoms were believed to be the smallest particle in the universe. By early 1931, it was postulated that the smallest particles in the universe were not atoms, but there were other smaller subatomic particles such as electron, proton and neutron which are the building blocks of matter and no other subatomic particles really existed. But their discoveries proved that there are other subatomic particles which are made of even tinier particles known as quarks.

Do you know what quarks are? And how many quarks constitute protons and neutrons? Let’s have a look at this.
There are a few subatomic particles which fundamentally make up matter. These particles are known as quarks. We consider atoms to be made up of protons, neutrons and electrons, as their primary constituents. The same way, these particles (protons etc) are made up of these quarks.

A few quarks can combine to form particles called hadrons. The protons or neutrons we read above are some of the most stable members of this hadron particle set. Proton is made up of a total of three quarks, two up quarks and one down quark. Neutron is made up of a total of three quarks, one up quark and two down quarks.

Therefore, the smallest thing in the universe is quarks.

Note: Antiquarks are the antiparticles that correspond to each quark flavour. Antiquarks are equivalent to quarks in terms of mass, mean lifespan, and spin; however, other attributes, like electric charge and other charges, have the opposite signs.