A recent experiment conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy called “Muon g-2” revealed discrepancies in established theories of particle physics. James Whitfield, an assistant professor of physics, explains what muons are and how they are changing the field.

“Understanding these pieces of matter better will allow us to build better materials, to understand other engineering aspects of using matter,” says Whitfield. “So, this is one of the things that’s really exciting going on to understand where the Standard Model of physics has discrepancies.”