The Elementary Particle Explorer displays the charges of all elementary particles, with a symbol assigned to each particle according to Garrett Lisi’s E8 Theory.

Each particle has two spin charges with respect to the gravitational force, two strong nuclear force charges, and electroweak charges which combine to equal the electric charge. These charges exist in eight-dimensional charge space, and their values correspond to points of the E8 polytope.

The plot is created by projecting these points onto a two-dimensional plane spanned by a horizontal direction, H, and a vertical direction, V, in eight-dimensional charge space. A third axes, D, gives 3D depth. Any of the eight axes may be selected by pressing the control buttons and dragging closer to H or V in the viewer, making that kind of charge more apparent in the plot. Select the left-right arrow to choose an axis to rotate towards the horizontal, H, and select the up-down arrow to choose an axis to rotate towards the vertical, V, or click the center to rotate towards both. You can also rotate or spin the plot in the viewing plane via a selection button. The display of triality, axes, orthographic projection, and spin animation, may be toggled using checkboxes on the Interactions panel. Rotations may be temporarily saved in "Saved Rotations," where some default rotations have been provided.

When a particle is clicked in the Interactions viewer, the particles it can interact with are highlighted in light blue. Selecting one of the highlighted particles reveals the third particle resulting from their interaction, based on charge conservation. This charge balance is illustrated via yellow and green rays, as well as the charges shown summed in the Interaction panel.

CREDITS

The 3D version was mostly done by Fable 5. The HTML5 implementation, by Greg Little, is based on a Flash application built by Troy Gardner, with creative assistance provided by Garrett Lisi. This work was partially funded by a grant from The Foundational Questions Institute.