Name: Jacque M.
Status: educator
Age: 50s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: Monday, June 17, 2002
Question:
I have heard that scientists have seen and been able to
identify what looks like bands within quarks. The intense orbiting
energy within the quark creates what appears to be rubber bands and were said
to be made up of sound waves. Is this true? If so where might I be able to
locate articles, journals, etc. It is obvious I do not know enough to
ask the question intelligently. Can you help?
Replies:
You have to be careful not to interpret the names that scientists attach to
what are in reality mathematical quantities. Nuclear physicists talk about
the "color", "spin", "strangeness", and "strings" that sub-atomic particles
possess. They do not mean these terms in the same sense that we use the
terms in every-day usage. They refer to mathematical properties, or
behavior. While I have not heard of the term "rubber bands" and "sound", the
size of subatomic particles and sound meaning the sinusoidal oscillation of
atoms and/or molecules cannot refer to the same phenomena.
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