Question

When they were first discovered during the 1930 sand 1940 s, there was confusion as to the identities of pions and muons. What are the similarities and most significant differences?

Short answer

See the answer below

Step-by-step solution

Determine the similarities

• Both pions and mesons are subatomic particles.
• Both are mostly seen on in the cosmic rays.
• They are unstable and decays into stable products.
• The mass of the pions is only 30 percent heavier than the mass of the muon where

$$\begin{gathered} m_{\mu }=207m_e \\ {m}_{\mathrm{\pi }}=274m_e \end{gathered}$$

Determine the differences

• Pions are particles that belongs to the boson family of the elementary particles because they have integral spin whereas muons belong to the fermion family as they have half-integral spin.
• Pions are not elementary particles and can participate in strong interactions whereas muon can participate in weak interactions.