
The strong force is responsible for quarks "sticking" together to form protons, neutrons and related particles.Scientists distinguish four elementary types of forces acting among particles: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational force. It will take Earth-based accelerator experiments to identify its fabric. This poorly understood matter exerts gravitational forces and manipulates galaxies. Like all quarks, the sixth quark, named top, is much smaller than a proton (in fact, no one knows how small quarks are), but the top is as heavy as a gold atom!Īlthough there are reasons to believe that there are no more sets of quarks and leptons, theorists speculate that there may be other types of building blocks, which may partly account for the dark matter implied by astrophysical observations. The electron neutrino, observed in the decay of other particles, completes the first set of four building blocks.įor some reason nature has elected to replicate this first generation of quarks and leptons to produce a total of six quarks and six leptons, with increasing mass. This set of particles is all that's needed to make protons and neutrons and to form atoms and molecules. Our everyday world is made of just three of these building blocks: the up quark, the down quark and the electron.


Physicists have identified 13 building blocks that are the fundamental constituents of matter.

Science of Matter, Energy, Space and Time What is the world made of? The building blocks Science of matter, energy, space and time.Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology Facility.
