3 Families
The 12 fundamental particles known to date are sorted in three groups of four, called families. The first family is related to ordinary matter: it includes electrons, up and down quarks that make up protons and neutrons, and the neutrino associated with the electron. The other two families are built on the same model: a heavy "cousin" of the electron (muon or tau), two quarks (one whose properties are similar to the up quark's, the other rather close to the down quark), and a neutrino.