Feynman Diagrams (Particle Physics - High School Physics)

Feynman diagrams are a graphical representation of the processes involved in particle physics reactions. This video introduces a series of 3 lessons about this insightful tool that puts to light the wonders of particle physics. These are intended to help high school students with their physics studies as well as high school physics teachers wondering how to approach the topic with their students.

Reactions occurring in particle physics are a marvel of processes involving the forces of nature (weak force, strong force and electromagnetic force). Writing these like a chemical reaction does not provide information about the processes involved, just what you start up with, and what you end up with.

One can use the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and Quantum Electrodynamics (EOD) to model quite well what is going on, but the mathematics involved is not for everyone! Instead, graphical representation of these reaction, invented by Richard Feynman, allow all to visualize easily the processes involved: Feynman diagrams.

He introduced these originally as a graphical aid for visualizing and calculating interactions between electrons and photons. Today, Feynman diagrams are commonly used to depict all types of particle interactions.

Access to the Videos Episode 1: What is a Feynman Diagram? (brief overview of Feynman diagrams, using as support a very well-known reaction, beta decay): https://youtu.be/TLBXrMixcu8

Episode 2: Space, Time and Vertices. (Presentation of the building elements of a Feynman diagram: space-time diagrams, the symbolism that is used, and the concept of vertex): https://youtu.be/JScJjZ9zW7A

Episode 3: Feynman Diagrams, Let’s build some! (Learning how to build Feynman diagrams by example, using particle physics reactions like muon decay, pion decay, Kaon decay etc.): https://youtu.be/vgk2aJRlBcg

SUPER USEFUL - The table of particles: https://www.physics-made-easy.com/Standard-Model-of-Particle-Physics

If you are not familiar with Particle physics, I recommend you start by viewing the series of videos that deals in detail with particle physics reactions: _ Introduction: https://youtu.be/gy-durcAhJ4 _ Elementary and composite particles of the standard model: https://youtu.be/AJSL39hVVPw _ Quantum numbers of particles: https://youtu.be/3SVMrLmGHWQ _ Conservation laws and particle physics reactions: https://youtu.be/E4JGzQjBgHg

PART 1 is a reminder of the standard model of particle physics. It presents the elementary particles (fermions like quarks and leptons, and bosons, like the photon or the gluon). It shows how combining some of them leads to composite particles (hadrons like the proton, the neutron, the pion and the kaon). Antimatter is also discussed in this section.

PART 2 is a detailed look at some of the properties of th ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9ihGuK53Ww