Do you know your elementary particles?

There was a time in the last century when the only subatomic particles we knew were the proton, neutron, and electron. But in the past 40 years or so physicists working at particle accelerators—or "atom smashers" in the lay lingo—have ferreted out a menagerie of so-called fundamental particles, everything from the charm and strange quarks to the gluon and tau neutrino. In this gallery, view visual representations of the most important fundamental particle discoveries—discoveries that have deepened physicists' understanding of the building blocks of nature as well as led to their appreciation of key aspects of string theory, such as supersymmetry. Read more...... and click here to see a larger version of the animation above.