How to Use the Particle Adventure

The Particle Adventure is a large site that contains a lot of information. It can be read like a book or it can be used as a reference guide. It was difficult to design a site that could encompass both of these goals. If the site reads like a book, it is hard to quickly find information about just one thing (e.g. "what are quarks?"). On the other hands, many concepts are related and should be introduced in the proper order (e.g. you need to learn about quarks before learning about hadrons).

The previous version of the Particle Adventure addressed this problem by treating the material as sections of a book with massively cross-referenced links between pages so those seeking specific information could quickly skip through the site. The problem is that if you were following a sequence of pages but clicked on a link to get more information about a particular concept, you would often find yourself horribly lost. Moreover, sections were intimidatingly long.

We decided to update this site to take advantage of new web technologies and bring the physics up-to-date. There is a hierarchical nested navigation list at the left of Particle Adventure pages that allows one to jump from one section to the other.

The revised look-and-feel and navigation requires cookies, Javascript, and Macromedia Flash. Netscape 2 and Internet Explorer 3 will not be able to view this site. While Netscape 3 can view this site, quizzes and certain animations may have unexpected behaviors. This site was designed with a Netscape 4 target, but has been tested on Internet Explorer 4.5, and Internet Explorer 5.

The Javascript site map has been replaced with an interactive Flash site map. This provides a clearer way to navigate the Particle Adventure. The Flash plugin is required in order to use the Site Map. It can be downloaded from Macromedia.

Revision Plans

The September 2000 update gives the site an alternative format without the use of frames. We will continue to update the rest of the content over the next few months.

-September 2000