• Question: Earlier in the chat, I asked you about quarks and is there any progress on discovering what they actually are?

    Asked by dragonskull20015 to David on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: David Freeborn

      David Freeborn answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Hi dragonskull20015,

      Great question!

      Most physicists *guess* that quarks are fundamental particles- they’re not composed of anything smaller. In the most advanced theories we have, quarks are considered to be “vibrations” of a fundamental field of nature called the strong field. We think gluons are a different type of vibration of this field.

      But that is only a guess. Lots of experiments have tried to look deeper, and see if quarks have any underlying structure. So far, we haven’t found any signs of it- if the quarks are made of any smaller particles, so far they have been too small for us to detect.

      But we shouldn’t let that stop us. Physicists used to think that atoms, and then protons were “fundamental” particles. So, I guess only time will tell. We may or may not find even smaller particles that quarks are made from.

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