What the Quark is going on here?

atom smashing in pre-particle acceleration era

You may be asking, why should I care about the Tevatron shutting down? (see last post.) Or about particle accelerators in general? Here’s the thing: large-scale particle accelerators like the Tevatron & Large Hadron Collider are not far off from the microwave in your kitchen or the computer screen from which you’re reading this.

“Microwaves” heat up food by emitting a microwave at a 2500 megahertz frequency (FM radio bandwiths use 88-108 mhz) that is uniquely absorbed and converted into heat by water, fats and sugars. And “atom-smashing” occurs in computer screens every time you power them on: electrons stored in a cathode accelerate through a cathode ray tube, change direction at the pull of electromagnets and smash into the phosphor molecules on the screen, creating a pixel, or light spot.

Particle accelerators produce microwaves on which particles ride. Like computer monitors, they too speed up particles and then very suddenly smash them into targets. The difference between the big-time smashers and those small appliances is that their microwaves are one million times more powerful, and the max speed of their particles is close to the speed of light (approximately 180,000 miles per second).

Thus, the big guys are powerful enough to break down matter into subatomic particles, and we’re not just talking protons, neutrons, electrons here. I personally feel cheated for not having learned about quarks (the smaller components of protons and neutrons) in high school, as well as for not seeing quark as a commonly-used noun in the English language (“the building quarks of matter”, “the little quarky spider”; great opportunities wasted).

After speeding up and smashing particles, particle accelerators use detection devices to analyze the results, including liquid and cloud chambers that track the trail of the scattered bits (similar to cloud trails left by airplanes, which are formed by exhaust condensing in the atmosphere). Some of the subatomic-particles that can be observed include:

-matter including QUARKS (you already know) & different types of LEPTONS (sounds like: leprechaun. similarly speedy. electrons are one type).

-anti-matter including POSITRONS (essentially a positive-charged electron).

-some BOSONS, which are particles that carry forces. The four known forces are strong, weak, electromagnetism and gravity. There is still a lot that scientists hope to discover regarding BOSONS via atom smashing.


Perhaps the biggest aspiration scientists have for atom-smashing is to recreate the Big-Bang theory and understand exactly how the universe formed. The theory is widely-accepted but until it is proven, a theory it shall remain. Other questions left unanswered: what gives particles mass, and what really is the deal with quarks? Who really is that ugly guy from Star Trek? And what DNA manipulation do we need to do to get earlobe/eyebrows like that in the human species?



Quark the bartender from Deep Space Nine


So many questions for Tevatron to answer, and only seven more months to answer them…