what exactly are quarks and how do we know they exist?
In: Chemistry
Once scientists learned they could accelerate electrons (the essence of electricity) and point them at materials they saw it did something.
Their tools and experiments and measurements got better and were able to smash hydrogen and helium nuclei at things like gold leaf and saw things happen.
Then they get really really good at smashing things together. But now they were seeing other stuff flying out. In the intense magnetic fields contained these smashing they saw particles *lighter* than even a proton! Wild eh?
They then found patterns in their properties (like scientists did 100+ years before with elements) and figured out these were what protons and neutrons were made of.
For fun they called them quarks because at this point who cares. No human will ever “feel” these things.
As of today we’ve tried smashing things, all kinds of things, and very very insanely high energies and have not been able to “break part” quarks.
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