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Article: On the trail of elemental matter; experiments now being analyzed seek a quark-gluon plasma, matter stripped to its most elementary constituents.
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- March 28, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1987 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On the Trail of Elemental Matter
Most physicists now believe thatquarks are elementary constituents of matter, the basic elements out of which everything is built. One of the experimental attempts to study quarks concentrates on reducing matter to a state in which only quarks and the particles called gluons, which embody the forces that quarks exert on each other, are present, a so-called quarkgluon plasma. This would be matter in an elemental state, stripped of all the phenomena and attributes that arise from combination and structure into protons, neutrons, atomic nuclei, atoms and more complicated structures up the scale.
Can experiment produce such a ...