Inparticle physics, the termparticle zoo[1][2] is usedcolloquially to describe the relatively extensive list of knownsubatomic particles by analogy to the variety of species in azoo.
In thehistory of particle physics, the topic of particles was considered to be particularly confusing in the late 1960s. Before the discovery of quarks, hundreds of strongly interacting particles (hadrons) were known and believed to be distinctelementary particles. It was later discovered that they were not elementary particles, but rather composites ofquarks. The set of particles believed today to be elementary is known as theStandard Model and includesquarks,bosons andleptons.
The term "subnuclear zoo" was coined or popularized byRobert Oppenheimer in 1956 at the VI RochesterInternational Conference on High Energy Physics.[3]
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