The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has begun its first-ever collisions of oxygen ions, in the latest attempt to understand the ...

Much is already known about the proton’s electric charge; it arises because of the electrically charged quarks whizzing around inside the proton. This motion defines the proton’s ‘electric ...

Up quarks have a +2/3 charge, and down quarks have a -1/3 charge. If you add and subtract those fractions, you get the +1 charge of a proton. Valence quarks get lots of attention.

While gluons are responsible for generating most of the visible mass in the universe, their role inside nuclei remains poorly ...

As quarks rain down on the earth, the British scientists suggest in their Nature article, those with a negative charge combine with oxygen in the ocean to form fractionally charged quark-oxygen atoms.

This process, called fragmentation, gives physicists clues about how quarks behave when they’re released from the tight grip of the strong nuclear force. Now here’s where the symmetry jumps in.

The atomic nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons, particles that exist through the interaction of quarks bonded by gluons. It would seem, therefore, that it should not be difficult to ...