Video Transcript
List the following particles in
order from the least mass to the greatest mass: tauon, photon, proton, electron,
muon, neutron.
We’ll be ranking our six particles
from least mass to greatest mass. Of the six particles listed, we
know that a photon is considered to be massless. Therefore, it would have the least
mass out of everything. And so we can place it at the top
of our list. When we compare the masses of our
three charged leptons, the tauon, the electron, and the muon, the electron has the
least mass and the tauon has the greatest with the muon being in the middle. In fact, the mass of the electron
is so small that it comes next on our list. And the muon being 200 times
greater than the electron is the third on our list, which leaves us with the three
most massive particles on our list, the tauon, the proton, and the neutron.
Their masses are actually pretty
close together. With the neutron slightly edging
out the mass of a proton, we can put our next particle in our list. The proton is the next most massive
particle. The proton is followed pretty
closely by the neutron, leaving only the tauon which happens to be about twice as
massive as the neutron. When ranking the particles on our
list from least mass to greatest mass, it goes photon, electron, muon, proton,
neutron, tauon.
