The universe is made up of hundreds of millions of particles. Thanks to science and research that have been developed throughout history, we know which are the smallest particles that exist that are known as atoms. Within these atoms, there is the smallest particle that we know of that are called quarks.
What are quarks?
It is difficult to define what the actual size of a quark is. They are the smallest particles in the universe, basic and indivisible. According to science, these quarks are part of the space they occupy, so their shape depends largely on perspective.
Although knowing exactly which is the smallest particle that exists in the world is complicated, since a quark in a gluon bath appears to be larger than the gluons that cluster around it.
Scientists point to three basic factors to consider when studying these tiny particles: elusion, interaction, and mass . Based on these factors, scientists determine that the one with the lowest mass, the most elusive, and the least interacting, could be considered the smallest particle in the universe, although it is really difficult to measure.
Discovery of quarks
All this scientific research is due to multiple studies carried out throughout history by specialized scientists. It was in 1964 when two physicists, Murray Gell Mann and George Zweig , each described the existence of subatomic particles known as quark.
They argued in their theories that the key properties of particles, baryons and mesons, would be better explained if these, in turn, were composed of other particles.
The name quark came from Gell Mann who simply searched for a meaningless word that would rhyme with ‘pork’ but without spelling. He found the word quark in a book by James Joyce and thus defined the smallest particle that exists:
“In 1963, when I named the fundamental constituents of nucleons quark, I had the first sound, without spelling, which could have been kwork. Then, in one of his occasional readings of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word quark in the phrase Three quarks for Muster Mark. “
Finally, it must be known that quarks are not free in nature themselves, but rather are grouped together to form hadrons that are divided into two types: Mesons (made up of a quark and an antiquark) and Baryons (made up of three or five quarks) .
