Wednesday, July 02, 2003 We Are All Alien Bar Owners on Deepspace 9. More than 99.9% of the mass of everyday objects is contained within the nuclei of atoms. This means that most of your body mass comes from subatomic particles that are made up of quarks.
There are hundreds of subatomic particles known and most are composites of simpler particles. They all fit into two categories - baryons and mesons.
Baryons are made of three quarks and mesons are comprised of two quarks - a quark and an anti-quark.
For a long time, scientists have been puzzled as to why only these quark combinations existed. Some predicted other combinations such as the pentaquark, which consists of five quarks, including an anti-quark.
The discovery of the pentaquark, also known as a new exotic baryon state, should have far-reaching consequences for our theory of particle interactions that attempt to explain the structure of matter. From the BBCNow, doesn't that make things much clearer? -- posted by Chuck at Wednesday, July 02, 2003 | E-mail | Permalink | Main |
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