Book Title: Microcosmology Atom in Jain Philosophy and Modern Science
Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

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Page 62
________________ 44 Microcosmology : Atom The other laws correspond to such quantum numbers' as isospio and hypercharge which are too complicated for our discussion. Suffice is to say that these are used to arrange particles into families forming neat symmetrical patterns called 'meson sextet and baryon octet' etc. Now, if one assumes that all hadrons are composed of smaller cleincntary cntities, most of these regularities can be represented in a very simple way. Such entities have been called "quarks"2 by Murray Gell Mann who postulated their existence in 1964 as stated carlier. Strong nuclear force binds and holds the quarks together in the proton and ncutron and holds the protons and neutrons tightiy together in the nuclei of atoms. It is belicved that this force is carried by a 'spin-l' particle, called the 'gluon' which interacts only with itself and with quarks. A curious property of the strong nuclear force called 'confinement prevents one from observing an isolated quark or gluon and might seem to make the whole notion of quarks and gluons as particles somewhat metaphysical, and a few years ago, it was bclicved that quarks are permanently .confined within hadrons and will never be detected. However, there is another property of the strong nuclear force called 'asymptotic freedom' that makes the concept of quarks and gluons well-defined. At normal energies, the strong nuclear forcc is indeed strong and it binds the quarks tightly together. However, at high cnergies, it becomes much weaker, and the quarks and gluons behave almost like free particles. By collision between a high-energy proton and anti-proton, several almost frec quarks have been produced. On the theoretical side, the quark model is very successful in accounting for the regularities found in particle-world. From three kinds of quarks in the original model of Gell Mann, the number has increased to at Icast eighteen quarks plus eight gluons to account for the observed patterns in the hadron spectrum. The terins colours' and 'flavours' have been introduced to distinguish different kinds of quarks and so there are quarks of different 'colors' and 'flavours :3 1. The basic quantum numbers are spin, isotopic spin, charge, strangeness, charm, baryon number and lepton number. 2. The fanciful name caught the fancy of its postulator from a line in James Joyce's book "Finnegan's Wake". 3. This is comparable to the laws of combination of paramānus which will be discussed in Chapter II.

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