In the most recent information I have seen, quarks always come in clusters of three particles which cannot be seperated. As I stated before, I believe the requirement for gravitational attraction would demand at least three particles of equal mass and density so that two would overpower the one. Quarks seem to suppot this idea to my way of thinking, and may well be the key to unlocking a quantum theory of gravity. Just my opinion.

A very good site to read is http://particleadventure.com, that describes the way fundamental particles work. Another is http://www.hep.net, the High Energy Particle physics network.

As you say quarks can not be found singly (by themselves) and are held together by Gluons. Gluons can be found by themselves and it has bene suggested that you can get a strange form of matter called a glue ball. Also, it has been suggested that you can "strange stars" that are made entirely of a compressed quark soup. Either http://science.nasa.gov or http://www.sciencedaily.com had an article about the search for these.

Anyways. If you have 2 quarks you get a so called Meson, meaning Medium particle. If you have 3 quarks then you get a Baryon (heavy particle). Both mesons and baryons are forms of hadrons, made form quarks. Electrons and neutrinos (which exist singly) are not made of quarks at all and are called leptons (light particles). This is more for readers who don't know this than an attempt to be a pedant.

String theory is an attempt to further simplify the model by saying that the 3 flavours of quarks and leptons are all vibratory modes of a string. If a viable string theory can be found, MBranes are looking good, then it may predict the properties of a Graviton so it can be found in the Lab.

As it stands though little is known about Gravitons and how Gravity can be quantised. People think it should be quantised simply because all fields known to date can be quantised. This is the exciting bleeding edge of physics in my opinion. Where super-symmetrical theories lead us could be the next major technical breakthrough for the human race.

Just a point Wayne, if as you say you need 3 particles to make gravity (2 cancel and one generates gravity) how does the gravity generating particle know to do so. Why don't 2 protons (both being Baryons) in a nucleus cancel each others gravity out? What happens if it is an anti-particle, does it generate anti-gravity, and if so how? Bear in mind that anti-protons, neutrons and electrons are well known and do not generate anti-gravity.

Yelmalio - inquiring minds, you know.

• Re: Quantum gravity & quarks - Wayne/">Wayne - November 19, 1999 - 16:50 UTC
• Re: Yelmalio - Wayne/">Wayne - November 19, 1999 - 17:07 UTC
  • Re: Yelmalio - Zephram_Cochrane/">Zephram Cochrane - November 20, 1999 - 02:37 UTC
    • Re: ZC - Wayne/">Wayne - November 20, 1999 - 03:12 UTC
  • Re: Yelmalio - Yelmalio/">Yelmalio - November 23, 1999 - 09:26 UTC
    • RE: Re: Yelmalio - Astronamy - September 22, 2000 - 18:45 UTC