Next time you’re at a birthday party and you’re sinking your
teeth into the first bite of cake, consider this: What do you
know is in that cake? Eggs? Flour? Maybe sugar? You “know” these
things because they are common ingredients in many baked goods.
You don’t necessarily see the eggs. You probably can’t even
directly taste them. But you know they’re there, right? Or you
can at least make a very educated guess that somewhere along the
line – this cake had to be made with the ingredient of eggs.
Kick it up a few notches into the world of advanced physics,
where scientists work under many similar assumptions. In
particle physics for example, physicists work with a
mathematical recipe known as the Standard Model. They “know” its
ingredients – even though one of those ingredients has never
actually been seen. Let’s back up. The Standard Model is a
theory in particle physics that is the best known way to explain
the dynamics of subatomic particles (protons, neutrons, and
electrons). According to the Model, these