In fact, if you ask, “what’s more important to the proton: quarks or gluons,” the answer depends on how you ask it. Here’s what really matters inside a proton.

For quarks and gluons, this heavy-duty “rope” is more properly known as the strong interaction. One of the four fundamental interactions in nature (along with gravity, the weak interaction and the ...

However, quarks and gluons behave very differently than those larger particles, making them more difficult to study. John Negele, the W.A. Coolidge Professor of Physics at MIT, ...

Gluons can dissociate into quark–antiquark pairs (sea quarks), and can also interact with other gluons (normal quarks are shown here in red, antiquarks in blue). b , In the Drell–Yan process ...

Although they are connected with gluons, quarks differ in that their quantum spin is 1/2, and they have a mass, albeit a tiny one (for example, an 'up' quark has a mass of 2.01 MeV, and a 'down ...

While quarks are particles that combine to form protons and neutrons, gluons act like glue, binding the quarks together. So far, scientists have been studying the atomic nucleus using two models.

During those very early moments of the universe, things were extraordinarily hot, and quark-gluon plasma behaves in strange ...

Although we depict quarks, antiquarks and gluons as having colors or anticolors, this is only an analogy. The actual science is even more fascinating. E. SIEGEL / BEYOND THE GALAXY.

But, if the gluons and quarks are close together, the “stretching rubber band” phenomenon does not occur. There may be particles that contain more than 3 quarks, the so called “exotics,” which may ...