In the 1960s, physicists trying to explore the microscopic depths of matter discovered that protons and neutrons are not fundamental particles—each is made out of three elementary particles. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann decided to call the three elementary particles “quarks,” a name that he got from a line in a whimsical poem in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake:
Gell-Mann thought that the line by Joyce was appropriate because the elementary particles came in sets of three to create protons and neutrons. There are six types of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom.
Three quarks for Muster Mark!
Sure he has not got much of a bark
And sure any he has it’s all beside the mark.
Gell-Mann thought that the line by Joyce was appropriate because the elementary particles came in sets of three to create protons and neutrons. There are six types of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom.
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