Quarks essays

Quarks essays Quarks, as of right now, are the smallest known particles of matter. These particles never or it is believed that they never exist by themselves. These particles combine together to form protons and neutrons in an atom. Without quarks, there would be no atoms and we would cease to exist. There are six known flavors of quarks. They are up, down, top, bottom, strange, and charm. Each of these six quarks has their own specific mass and electrical charge. The most common of these quarks are up and down. They are the lightest and they make up all the matter around us. The next two lightest of the quarks, strange and charm, are found in cosmic rays that originate in space. The two heaviest of the quarks, top and bottom, have not yet been found in nature. Scientist are only able to produce them in the lab. It is believed that the heavier quarks decay to the lighter quarks and that is why we dont see the heaviest in nature. Each quark has an opposite particle known as an antiquark. These antiquarks combine to form antimatter. This antimatter does not exist in nature on Earth and it is believed that it is very rare in the universe. We know that it does exist for physicists have produced antimatter in laboratories. Antiquarks have some of the same properties but some of the properties are opposite of that of their counterparts. Each quark has been divided into one of three categories called generations. The first generation is the lightest two quarks, second is the next heaviest two, and the third are the heaviest of the quarks. Quarks are different from other elementary particles for they each have a specific electrical charge that is a fraction of the standard charge of charge (e) of one proton. Most other particles have multiples of that charge. Of all the quarks the heaviest of them is the top quark. It is over 30,000 times larger than the up quark. This large mass made it very difficult for sc...