Gluons | Standard Model Of Particle Physics

yeah, using "colours" as a replacement word for "properties" is just confusing the situation. as it still tells you fuck all about the 'property' changes. Who came up with that bright idea?

@dobberdoss

The word "color charge" is just a name, but it is a useful one since, according to theory, composed particles always appear "color neutral" from the outside. The three quarks of the proton represent the color combination red/green/blue, which adds up to white (i.e. color-neutral). The two quarks of the so-called pion represent for example the color combination red/anti-red (because it is a quark plus an anti-quark, hence anti-colors), which also adds to a color-neutral state.

@bytedildo I really don't see how you can believe in a god if you know this much about the universe. Maybe another one of the infinite universes has one, but probably not this one.

hehe, i was just kidding, but somehow we know so much about universe but still from philosophical stand point I see no answer to the invisible question ;)

@bytedildo

The color charge is indeed something you can measure. It is absolutely essential to explain the data of many particle accelerator experiments.

Keep in mind, they aren't actual colors, just descriptors. It's for a quantity that we can't properly define without making up a new term, hence chromodynamics.

I'm so confused. I just heard that most of the mass in a nucleus resides in the empty space between the quarks, and now this. My tiny brain can't take it.

Don't worry, I think that is a common feeling among us non-physicists. The main thing is the quest for knowledge and the methods used. You don't have to understand everything in order to make progress on this life long journey.

Im not even going to try to understand.

@oggleman

Most of the mass is the nuclear binding energy between the quarks (carried by gluons, the carrier of the strong nuclear force).

According to Einstein (E=mc^2), the binding energy translates to a mass m=E/c^2. It is essentially this mass you measure when stepping on a weighing machine (the masses of the quarks amount less then 4%).