“This was truly surprising because, according to the standard model, the muon is basically a carbon copy of the electron – identical in every way except for being around 200 times heavier.”
~~~
200x heavier??? That’s nothing to scoff. They don’t seem identical at all to me. Why would it be a surprise that quarks decay to them at different rates.
Also:
“Beauty quarks, sometimes called bottom quarks, are fundamental particles, which in turn make up bigger particles. There are six flavors of quarks that are dubbed up, down, strange, charm, beauty/bottom and truth/top. Up and down quarks, for example, make up the protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus.
Beauty quarks are unstable, living on average just for about 1.5 trillionths of a second before decaying into other particles.”
If they decay into other particles, how can they be fundamental particles? The article seems to contradict itself.