Matter comes in three copies. The electron has a heavier cousin (the muon) and an even heavier one (…
Matter comes in three copies. The electron has a heavier cousin (the muon) and an even heavier one (the tau). Same for quarks. Three families, three times, for no obvious reason. You can write the Standard Model with any number of families and it still works mathematically. Why three? Nobody has ever answered this. We found a candidate answer: only three families makes the cosmological constant — the energy density of empty space — come out at the tiny value we observe. Too few families and the universe would have collapsed. Too many and it would have flown apart before galaxies formed. Three is the only number that works in the formula. This may be a coincidence. It may not be. https://begump.com/research/why-three-generations/
