There are a multitude of other exotic arrangements of quarks like mesons which consist of a quark and its antiquark, and tetra and pentaquarks made up of three and five quarks respectively.Ĭonsidering how quarks come together to form particles is important because despite being fundamental particles, quarks are found wandering the particle zoo on their own. It should also be apparent that when the weak nuclear force causes an up quark to switch to a down quark it also charges the nucleon it is part of from a proton to a neutron. (udaix/Shutterstock)Ĭonsidering these arrangements and the fact that each flavour of quark has its own charge it’s easy to see why the proton has a positive charge whilst the neutron is neutral. A diagram shows how quarks usually fit into our understanding of tiny particles. Protons are made up of one down quark and two up quarks, whilst neutrons are comprised of two down quarks and an up quark. Quarks join up to make particles called baryons, the most common of which are the protons and neutrons that come together to form the elements and the matter we interact with on an everyday scale. It is this quality–again nothing to do with wavelengths of light, quarks are large enough to reflect light in such a way to have a conventional colour– that determines how quarks come together to form other, more massive, particles. The strong nuclear force binds together quarks in nucleons, whilst the weak nuclear force can actually cause quarks to switch flavours something that we’ll look at further when we get to the force-carrying particles.īut these elementary particles don’t just come in flavours–they also come in ‘colours.’
Of the four fundamental forces, quarks ‘feel’ electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity, but the latter is too weak to have an effect on quarks’ tiny mass. Of course, I’ve primed you to realise that this name has nothing to do with how these quarks taste!
These are generally known as the ‘flavours’ of quarks, each of which has its own antiquark. And the third generation contains the most massive particles, known as the top and bottom quarks. The six quarks that make this family of particles are known as up, down quarks, which make up the first generation of quarks, these second comprises of the more massive charm and strange quarks. So, let’s make quarks the first stop in our walk through the particle zoo. They reflect things we commonly encounter in the everyday macroscopic world such as flavour, colour and spin, but really shouldn’t be confused with those things. One thing you will notice is the interesting naming convention for these qualities. Starting with the quarks is an easy way to introduce some of the qualities and values associated with the particles in the Standard Model. The greater in mass these particles are, the quicker they decay into their lighter cousins. The second and third generations are made up of increasingly more massive and less stable particles. These are the particles responsible for forming the elements of the Universe we are most familiar with–the stars, planets, moons, and us. The first generation of leptons and quarks are made up of the lightest and most stable particles. Within each of these groups are six particles that group into three pairings that physicists call generations. Of the fermions, the two mains classes are leptons and quarks. Of these building blocks, there are two main families fermions and bosons. The everyday matter that surrounds us is comprised of building blocks called elementary particles.
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