Particles?

Question

1. Why do you think scientists have only recently discovered subatomic particles?
2. What might scientists learn by breaking apart an atomic nuclei?

Answer 1

1. Why do you think scientists have only recently discovered subatomic particles? Yes, 200+ years is rather recent. Why? Simply developing the questions and the instruments needed to measure their presence took that much time.
2. What might scientists learn by breaking apart an atomic nuclei?
What they are learning is that the nucleus is a very complicated collection of stable particles like protons and neutron and unstable particles like gluons. Particles can be defined by a collection of quantum numbers. Particles have both Newtonian and quantum characteristics.

Answer 2

1. Because the accelerators were not powerful enough back in the day.

2. They have to break the atom apart with high energies because they will create more subatomic particles. The higher the energy of the collisions the more possibility of heavier particles. Also, they can get clues about the first few moments after the big bang at those energies.