Could someone explain the "top quark" to me?
401330
Quarks are fundamental subatomic particles. Your and my school physics probably stopped at electrons protons and neutrons, but leptons and quarks are now widely regarded as "more fundamental" i.e. the building blocks out of which protons and electrons and neutrons (known collectively as hadrons) are built.\n\nAs you might expect if there is a top quark, there is a bottom quark, too. In fact there are six types of quark in all. With various properties ...\n\nEach quark is assigned a baryon number, B  =  1/3, and a vanishing lepton number L  =  0. They have fractional electric charge, Q, either Q  =  +2/3 or Q  =  −1/3. The former are called up-type quarks, the latter, down-type quarks. \n\nEach quark is assigned a weak isospin: Tz  =  +1/2 for an up-type quark and Tz  =  −1/2 for a down-type quark. Each doublet of weak isospin defines a generation of quarks. There are three generations, and hence six flavours of quarks — the up-type quark flavours are up, charm and top; the down-type quark flavours are down, strange, and bottom (each list is in the order of increasing mass).\n\nThe fractional electric charges are worth a comment.\n\nAs you know electrons have a charge of -1 and protons a charge of + 1. This means that electrons contain three quarks with Q = -1/3 and protons contain three quarks, two of them having Q = +2/3 and one of them having Q - -1/3. And neutrons (charge 0) contain 3 quarks, one of them having Q = +2/3, and two of them having Q = -1/3\n\nQuarks are not seen in isolation as separate entities, they are contained within (or "confined" to) the hadrons of which they are part.
992429
Hi bornsmartgal\n\nThe antimatter created in the very early universe annihilated with matter created at the same time.  When a matter particle and its antimatter counterpart meet the annihilate and produce energy (eg a collision between an electron and positron produces two back to back photons).  In the early universe there was a small over abundance of matter over antimatter (one billion and one matter particles for every one billion antimatter particles).  After the annihilation this leaves matter left over (plus a billion photons for every matter particle!)\n\nThis initial over abundance of matter over antimatter is puzzling - the difference between matter and antimatter is a reversal of charge and particle physics is largely symmetrical to charge reversal. Physicists have been looking for an asymmetry in nature which will explain the over abundance, and have finally found a few such events (called charge-parity symmetry violations).  It appears nature isn't totally symmetrical after all.\n\n\nHope this helps!\nThe Chicken
1165249
This is the part of the wikipedia that I understood.  I can explain it to you if you want to send me a message.  I think it makes alot of sense.\nNow let’s see what happens to our accelerating particles when a torque is applied to the spinning wheel. Assume the axis of rotation created by the torque is through the center of the wheel at 90 degrees to the primary rotation of the wheel. Let’s look at a particle that is on this axis of rotation. Since the particle is on the axis of rotation there is no direct motion applied to the particle at the instant of the applied torque. But let’s look at what will need to happen at the next moment in time. The particle is now going to be forced to curve again. This time in the direction of the curve so as to accommodate the tilt of the wheel. Now we have a particle that is already moving and it wants to keep moving in a straight line. So the particle will exert a force on the wheel. If you look at a particle on the other side of the wheel you will see that the force of the second particle is in the opposite direction of the first particle. That pair of unmatched forced is what causes the precession torque that is 90 degrees to the applied torque
275760
Well, cosmic string theory would say that every atom (every quark) is tied together since they are all multidimensional protrusions into our world by the same object.  This leads to some interesting ideas of the relativity of time btw.  Even gravity and expansion link us together with other planets, stars and galaxies to some degree.  32-dimensional physics also ties us all together with the dimensions that are wrapped up in every atom/quark.\n\nSo, to some degree we are synchronized.  To some degree we are also seperate - relativity shows us that we each move at our own speed.  The answer is partly.\n\nPS. if you want to go psychology of personal perception there's a good argument for "Synchronicity" which is a different discussion.
422248
For the time being, we do not know if quarks themselves haveany volume at all. If they, do, the best answer I can give (if we forget the interactions that bind them - which may be a big mistake or not, for there are many more quarks in a proton, than the commonly known 3), the radius of a quark is less than 10^-19m, let's say that it is equal to that, say we have a ball with a radius of 1cm=10^-2 m, making it 10^17 times bigger (linear measurement) So going into  volumes, we get 10^51, which is my approximation.
526886
In order:\n\n1) Red, blue, and green colour charges are distinct, but arbitrary, exactly like + and - electrical charges.  There is a difference between something positively charged and something negatively charged.  With quarks, it's simply that there are three different kinds of charge, instead of just two for electromagnetism.\n2) Because gluons are, themselves, influenced by the strong force, a correct description of the quantum force diagrams (penguin diagrams, if you know that term) must necessarily include higher order interactions than simply quark <-> gluon <-> quark.  The one you propose is, I believe, possible by the rules governing the quantum behaviour of quarks and gluons, as are many, many more distinct diagrams.\n3) There is no meaningful order.  RBG and RGB are both "colourless".\n4) String theory is outside of my area of expertise, I don't think I can address this issue in any meaningful way.
95898
The most fundamental particles known to exist at the moment are quarks and leptons. Quarks are the things the make up the pieces of the nucleus in an atom and leptons include things like electrons.\n\nWithin a nucleus you will have heard of Protons and Neutrons ro collectively Nucleons. Well a quark is a sub unit of one of these so called "Nucleons". There are three quarks to every nucleon. There are many types of quark and these create many types of particles, most of which are extremely shortlived. You can learn more about the world of Particle Physics in the Particle Physics Adventure.\n\nhttp://particleadventure.org/particleadventure/
475479
here's my guess --\nthat these particles are somehow "connected" . that they do not violate casuality (this one is proveable) or locality....somehow.
765839
Top C is the one above the stave (two ledger lines, and two octaves above middle C).\nWhen you hear singers talking about top C, that's what it is.\nI'm not sure about high C though. I've never heard that before. Maybe it's the one an octave above middle C.
382676
Quarks outnumber protons because protons are composed of quarks; it is similar to asking why feet outnumber miles, or meters outnumber kilometers. \n\nAntimatter (And matter for that matter-lol) ceases to have any meaning in black holes because they are regions of space where matter is compacted to infinite density, thus having zero area. It can be said that black holes are made of nothing in the same way they are made of something.\n\nIn fact, any antimatter brought in contact with a black hole would simply be pulled in with anything else you throw at it; it's sorta like a starving dog when you throw dish towel and a piece of steak at it: neither will remain.
214575
It is true that nobody knows. It is false that theories on the origin of matter are wild speculations. See an earlier post I did today on an almost identical question for a reasonable theory for the origin of matter out of nothing.\n\nIn short, the fact is that matter appears out of nowhere all the time. There's is no reason to think it could not do a slightly more extreme version of the same thing if the vacuum state were changed a little bit, ie. its energy density was increased.
791378
It is a particle accelerator named LHC.  That stands for Large Hadron Collider.  It is part of the Antiproton Decelerator Facillity.
1104368
Hi Aaron\n\nThe W+, W- and Z particles are actually intermediate vector bosons - they're the exchange bosons for the weak force, not the strong force.  The unification of weak force with electromagnetism requires these bosons to be massive (so that the strengths reconcile at the unification energy).  A consequence of the boson mass is that the weak force is short ranged.\n\nBoth W and Z bosons have been detected at CERN.  The detected masses match those predicted by electroweak theory. The mass of these bosons is posited to occur via the Higgs mechanism, the interaction of the bosons with the Higgs scalar mass field.  The charged W bosons take part in quark decays (eg beta decay) whereas the Z boson shows influence through weaker neutral currents.\n\nStrong nuclear interactions are mediated by gluons.  There are 8 different gluon types (compare to four electroweak bosons) and all gluons are massless (like the photon).\n\nHope this helps!\nThe Chicken
63744
B only seems impossible because you're looking at it from a small, everyday perspective.  Read a book on quantum phenomenon and you'll discover that particles literally appear out of no where everyday, and we take this as completely normal.  The Universe and Everything is far more sophisticated than you're giving it credit for.
455313
Probably the number of protons in the universe. (it's an estimate) It's a figure that is 102 digits long and all different digits.   Not just 1 with 100 zeros after it.  The biggest number known is a googleplex. A google is 1 with 100 0's after it and a googleplex is 1 with a google amount of 0's after it... it's huge.  Curiously there are only just enough protons in the universe to write it down, and that's using one proton per number...
170874
Most physicists (like Feynman) will tell you it's definitely a particle.  I think they're full of crap, and it's a wave.  The fact that it can only be absorbed and emited in discrete packets doesn't necessarily mean that it really travels as a particle, and the notion of a particle flies in the face of the double-slit one-photon experiment.
788532
Is it x*(e-2) or x^(e-2)?\n\nI don't think it matters anyway, because the bottom fluctuates between 3 and 5 while the top increases indefinitely, i.e. approaches "infinity" if you like.  So there's no limit.