Most types of particles produced in collision events have lifetimes so short that they go an extremely short distance before decaying, and so leave no "tracks". We must deduce their presence by examining the characteristics of their decay products.
Physicists today combine many components to make a multi-layered detector that has many capabilities. Each component serves a separate function in tracking the particles, measuring their energies and momenta, and/or distinguishing different particle types.
Enormous number of collisions are analyzed, so large computers are needed to collect and to interpret the data.
Question: What components does the human detector (body) have?
