What is a particle?

Answer 1

If you don't feel like reading the rest, here's the short answer: A particle is an object that experiences translational forces only; the object is treated as a point and experiences no rotation.

In physics there are two basic methods of movement in 2-D or 3-D space. These are translation and rotation, or in physics terms, forces and moments (or torques). In other words, an object can either move from one spot to another (translation/forces) or it can twist (rotation/moments), or as is usually the case a combination of the two.

A particle means you are treating an object as though there are absolutely no rotational forces on it. All you are concerned about are the translational forces. If you were to look at the physics of a marble, you would treat it as a particle. True, there would in fact be rotational forces on the marble as it turns through the air, but these would be negligible compared to the translational forces, so they would typically be neglected. However, if you were looking at the physics of engine parts, you could not treat them as particles because there are likely important rotational moments on them that can't be ignored.

Particles exist in theory only. There is no object in the known universe that acts as a perfect particle. Even single atoms experience rotational forces. However, it would be silly to examine rotational forces on objects where it makes little difference, so we treat them as particles to save time.

Answer 2

In particle physics, an elementary particle is a particle of which other, larger particles are composed. For example, atoms are made up of smaller particles known as electrons, protons, and neutrons.

Answer 3

Hi. A very small amount of matter. In physics it is the smallest discreet chunk of matter and/or energy. Such as a photon or quark.

Answer 4

good question we know how one might behave, what properties it might have, what it is? who knows