- #36
ohwilleke
Gold Member
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Vanadium 50 said:There is not a shred of evidence that the e goes with (u,d), the mu goes with (c,s) or the tau goes with (t,b). They are usually placed in tables this way, but not for any reason other than mass.
Mean life time hierarchy also favors the current alignment of u-d-e, c-s-mu, t-b-tau. Lepton flavor conservation favors the alignment of the respective neutrino types with their respective lepton types. No second or third generation fundamental particles, and no composite particles containing second or third generation fundamental particles are stable. It also makes sense that t is the 3rd rather than the 2nd generation because its extremely short lifetime makes it an outlier as the non-hadronizing quark which fit an extreme rather than intermediate generation.