It is customary in science, after discovering some kind of order or pattern, to form a hypothesis and test it by experiment. Because particle physics is not my area of expertise, I was unable to determine an appropriate experiment, but the pattern presented here is impressive in its implications for fundamental particle structures. By publishing the material, I hope to bring it to the attention of those more knowledgeable in this area, and that someone else may develop appropriate experiments to test my hypothesis.

Electrons and protons, primary constituents of atoms, were both "discovered" (i.e., some of their properties were measured) in the late 1890’s. The third primary constituent of atoms, the neutron, was discovered in 1932. After that, new particles, not associated with atoms (at that time) began turning up. Some of them were predicted and some were not. One predicted particle was the neutrino, an uncharged invisible particle. The neutrino was predicted (in 1930) to account for apparently unconserved mass and momentum in radioactive decay. It was discovered in 1956.

Another type of particle that began turning up (starting with the positron in 1932) was the anti-particle, so-called anti-matter. A particle’s anti-particle is its mirror image. If a particle meets its anti-particle, both are destroyed and a photon (light) is produced. (Note: Neutrinos and anti-neutrinos do not annihilate).

As particles were discovered, they were put into one of three groups:

1. Particles and anti-particles that did not interact with strong nuclear force were called leptons
2. Particles that interacted with strong nuclear forces and decayed to protons and other particles were called baryons.
3. Particles that interacted with strong nuclear force and decayed, but did not produce protons as decay products were called mesons.

Among the mesons and baryons were particles that took unusually long times to decay. These were called Strange particles, or it was said that they had the property of strangeness.

In 1962, Murry Gell Mann, at Cal Tech, found a relationship between the mesons and baryons (collectively called "hadrons"). He called the relationship "The Eightfold Way". In 1964, he discovered that the Eightfold Way relationship was analogous to predicting that the meson and baryons were built up of other particles. Gell Mann called these hypothetical particles "quarks". The baryons were each composed of 3 quarks, while the mesons were each composed of a quark and an anti-quark. In 1964, all known hadrons could be shown to be built up of just 3 kinds of quarks. Gell Mann called these "up", "down", and "sideways" (strange). The strange particles each possessed one or more strange or anti-strange quarks. Since that time, other particles have been discovered that were evidently made up of quarks other than those named above. The names of the "new" high-energy quarks are "charm", "top" (or "truth"), and "bottom (or "beauty").

The picture of particle physics has been confused. There are too many elementary particles for them to be elementary. So, let’s make a supposition. Let’s suppose that all "elementary" particles are themselves made up of a single kind of particle. Let’s look and see if we can find a good candidate for this particle.

If we assume that all particles are built up of a single kind of elementary particle, then that particle must be the simplest and most elementary of all particles. This eliminates as candidates all particles that decay, because a particle’s decay products have to be more elementary than the parent particle. OK, so what particles do not decay?

are the only particles that do not decay. However, protons are apparently built of up quarks and a down quark, and anti-protons are apparently built of anti-up quarks and an anti-down quark. So, this changes our list of candidates to

When a muon (high-energy state electron) decays, it can decay into an electron and a photon, or into an electron, neutrino and anti-neutrino. Here it seems that the photon is somehow equivalent to a neutrino and anti-neutrino. Hence, the neutrino and its anti-particle, the anti-neutrino, appear to be the simplest known particles in the Universe. If this supposition is wrong, we should be able to find ways to disprove it.

To build the Universe out of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, it will be necessary (for the time being) to ignore a phenomenon called "conservation of charge", for which no exception has yet been found. During the development of Physics, a number of quantities were observed to be conserved every time changes took place. These conserved quantities included mass, charge, momentum, energy, and parity (or symmetry). As time went on, it was discovered that some of these quantities were not conserved in all cases. It was discovered by Einstein (1907) that mass was not a conserved quantity because it could be converted to energy, and that energy was not a conserved quantity because it could be converted to mass. In 1956, it was discovered that in the radioactive decay of cobalt 60 to nickel 60, parity was not conserved. Now, in order to build charged particles out of neutral particles (neutrinos and anti-neutrinos) it is necessary to assume that, as with mass, energy, and parity, there are certain circumstances in which charge is not conserved.

If we are successful in showing that other particles are composites of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, then it should be possible to predict in exactly what circumstances charge should not be conserved, and to verify them experimentally.

The simplest of particles other than the photon, neutrino, and anti-neutrino are (for the above stated reasons) the stable particles:

Assuming that particles are built up of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos in the simplest possible fashion, what are the simplest arrays of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos that could account for these particles?

From the muon decay, the photon structure may be abbreviated "an". The other duet particle possibilities, a-a and n-n could account for only two particles. However, the simple particle arrays have to account for the six particles listed above. The next simplest particle arrays, after duets, are triplets. Triplets of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos hooked together in triangular fashion could account for 4 particles:

Again, however, there are not sufficient combinations. However, triplets of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos hooked together in linear combination do produce 6 possible particle structures:

Of these hypothetical structures, two are of an un-mixed type: a-a-a, and n-n-n, while four are mixtures of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos: a-n-a, n-a-n, a-a-n, and n-n-a.

Coincidentally, of the aforementioned particles, two are of the lepton type: electron and positron, while four are of the quark type: up, down, anti-up, and anti-down. So, let’s suppose that the un-mixed structures are the structures of the leptons, while the mixed structures are the structures of the quarks.

It was stated earlier that other, high energy quarks have been "found" (no quark has ever been isolated). High energy leptons (electrons) have also been discovered. These new quarks have been assigned charges that correspond to charges of lower energy quarks. The high energy (actually high mass) leptons, likewise carry charges similar to their low energy counterparts. Let’s assume that a high energy quark that carries the same charges as a stable quark is simply a high energy form of that quark, and a high mass electron that carries the same charge as the electron is just an excited state of the electron.

Now, it is necessary to make one last assumption before testing the validity of all of them. A particle’s anti-particle is its mirror image. Let’s assume the same is true for the neutrino – anti-neutrino structures. So, for:

Here is a list of suppositions that have to be made:

1. All particles are composites (built out of) the simplest particle and its anti-particle.
2. The simplest particle is the neutrino.
3. There are certain circumstances under which charge is not conserved.
4. The stablest particles other than the neutrino, the anti-neutrino, and the photon (i.e., particles that have mass and do not decay) are made up of neutrino and anti-neutrino triplets, the 2 leptons having unmixed structures, and the 4 quarks having mixed structures.
5. A high energy quark that has the same assigned charge as a stable quark is just an excited state of that quark, and a heavy electron that carries the same charge as an ordinary electron is just an excited state of that electron.
6. Mirror image structures correspond to the mirror image particles they represent (i.e.,

Assigned Charges of Quarks and Leptons

We can check to see if the neutrino/anti-neutrino structure hypotheses is possible or not by looking at particle decays. We assume that both particles and their decay products are made of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos. So if, for example, a parent particle has 2 more neutrinos than anti-neutrinos in its structure, then its decay products must also have 2 more neutrinos than anti-neutrinos in their structures.

Let’s look at the neutron decay. A neutron decays into a proton, an electron, and an anti-

neutrino. Symbolically, . When structures were assigned to leptons and

quarks, it was assumed that electrons were the un-mixed structures (a-a-a, or n-n-n). Let’s see if it is possible that electrons are anti-neutrino triplets, a-a-a.

A neutron (supposedly) is composed of two down quarks and one up quark, while a proton is composed of two up quarks and a down quark. So when a neutron decays to a proton, effectively a down quark is converted into an up quark, while the other quarks remain unchanged.

ddu ® duu + electron + anti-neutrino. If the electron is assumed to be the aaa triplet, it does not matter what mixed structures are assigned to the up quark and down quark, the decay is impossible.

There are simply too many anti-neutrinos in the decay products. In case (1), there is one more anti-neutrino than neutrino in the parent particle, but there are three more anti-neutrinos than neutrinos in the decay particles. Case (2) is even more unbalanced. So, we can conclude that it is impossible that the electron is an anti-neutrino triplet and that the neutrino structure hypothesis is true.

However, there were two possible unmixed structures for the electron, a-a-a and n-n-n. Let’s see if the n-n-n electron structure runs into the same difficulty…

Case (1) does not work. There is an excess of one anti-neutrino in the parent particle, while there is an excess of 3 neutrinos in the decay particles. However, case (2) does work. There is one more neutrino than anti-neutrino in the parent particle, and there is also one more neutrino than anti-neutrino in the decay products. Case (2) says that the neutrino structure hypotheses is possible if and only if the electron is a neutrino triplet, the down quark is composed of two neutrinos and one anti-neutrino, and the up quark is composed of one neutrino and two anti-neutrinos.

Is it simply an accident or coincidence that these structures work for neutron decay? If it is just an accident that they work for neutron decay, then they probably will not work for some other decay (recall that the a-a-a electron structure did not work for neutron decay). It is nearly impossible that structures that accidentally work in neutron decay would also accidentally work in all particle decays. So, let’s look at other particle decays using the structures that worked for the neutron decay:

We will arbitrarily use the structure nan for the down quark and ann for the up quark in the following examples:

An excess of 1 neutrino ® an excess of 1 neutrino.

(i.e., 4 anti-neutrinos + 5 anti-neutrinos ® 6 anti-neutrinos + 7 neutrinos)

Excess of 2 anti-neutrinos ® excess of 2 anti-neutrinos

(i.e., 4 anti-neutrinos + 2 neutrinos ® 3 anti-neutrinos + 1 neutrino

Excess of 3 anti-neutrinos ® excess of 3 anti-neutrinos

(i.e., 3 anti-neutrinos ® 4 anti-neutrinos + 1 neutrino

Excess of 2 neutrinos ® excess of 2 neutrinos

Excess of 3 neutrinos ® excess of 3 neutrinos

Excess of zero neutrinos ® excess of zero neutrinos

(i.e., 3 neutrinos + 3 anti-neutrinos ® 2 neutrinos + 2 anti-neutrinos

Excess of 1 neutrino ® excess of 1 neutrino

An excess of 3 neutrinos ® an excess of 3 neutrinos

Excess of 1 neutrino ® excess of 1 neutrino

Excess of 3 neutrinos ® excess of 3 neutrinos

Excess of 3 neutrinos ® excess of 3 neutrinos

Excess of 2 anti-neutrinos ® excess of 2 anti-neutrinos

Excess of zero neutrinos ® excess of zero neutrinos

Excess of 2 anti-neutrinos ® excess of 2 anti-neutrinos.

Excess of zero neutrinos ® excess of zero neutrinos

(i.e., 3 neutrinos + 3 anti-neutrinos ® 6 neutrinos + 6 anti-neutrinos.)

Excess of zero neutrinos ® excess of zero neutrinos

(i.e., 3 neutrinos + 3 anti-neutrinos ® 2 neutrinos + 2 anti-neutrinos.

Excess of zero neutrinos ® excess of zero neutrinos

(i.e., 3 neutrinos + 3 anti-neutrinos ® 5 neutrinos + 5 anti-neutrinos)

Excess of 1 neutrino ® excess of 1 neutrino

(i.e., 5 neutrinos + 4 anti-neutrinos ® 8 neutrinos + 7 anti-neutrinos)

Excess of 1 anti-neutrino ® excess of 1 anti-neutrino

(i.e., 4 neutrinos + 5 anti-neutrinos ® 7 neutrinos + 8 anti-neutrinos)