Illustration of Quark

1964 Quark

The book of science

Tom Sharp

Murray Gell-Mann, George Zweig physics Illustration of Quark

Quark

Even more elementary than protons and neutrons, three tiny quarks are bound together with much more energy than they inhabit themselves. All kinds of crazed gluons and antiparticles swirl around between them bearing electric charge, mass, color charge, and spin.

Quark matter

Quark matter, degenerate matter degenerating into strange matter, unless all matter were fundamentally strange. Charge me a color and I’ll color you a charge. Spin me a degree and I’ll move you a liquid. Let us dream together quasi-isles of stability.

Three quarks for Muster Mark!

Three quarks for tiny trons! Free leaps for enlisted leptons! Quirky drunks swill up the drink. Three for all and one for fall. Like ducks they waddle up and down; like bats they flit above, below. Whether charmed or strange, like tops, uncertain or sure, you never know.

Quarks could have been “kworks,” and “quarks” could have been “quarts.” Credit is due to the wordplay of James Joyce in Finnegans Wake and to Murray Gell-Mann for making the association.

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