Is the standard model just QED with more particles?

Submitted by star-nostar t3_125ypw9 in askscience

I read Feynman's "QED", and I feel like I "understand" the quantum mechanics of a universe with only electrons and photons, to my own modest level of understanding. I want to understand the whole standard model to that same level. Is it the same, but with more particles?

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mfb- t1_je7qe4h wrote

More particles and more interactions - QED is only electromagnetism, which is the easiest interaction to work with. The strong and weak interaction are more complicated, and then you also have to add the Higgs mechanism.

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star-nostar OP t1_je8p912 wrote

Yeah, that Higgs mechanism. I've heard it "gives mass to particles", and I've seen that sombrero graph, but it might be forever beyond my grasp.

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dileep_vr t1_je7wmie wrote

Maybe more accurate to say that the standard model is just QED with more fields. But basically, yeah. QCD for example, involves the strong nuclear force (gluons) and "particles" with "color" (eg. quarks). QED is electromagnetic force (photons) and "particles" with charge. Vanilla QED just considered electrons (and by extension, positrons).

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star-nostar OP t1_je8me1l wrote

Thanks. Yeah, I know physicists now talk about fields and forces, where the book I read takes the view that photons and electrons are both particles. I hope the particle perspective is not wrong, as long as I'm not actually trying to calculate anything.

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darkenergymaven t1_je7phef wrote

No, you need the weak interaction (EWK) and the strong interaction (QCD) in addition to QED.

Try Deep Down Things by Schumm for a description of particle physics for the non scientist

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