Dawn of the quark ages Studio Tonne
ASK them to name their heart’s truest desire, and many a science nut might say the answer to life, the universe and everything – or, failing that, a fully functioning lightsaber.
Odd, then, that one field of scientific enquiry that could conceivably provide both gets so little press. After all the hoopla of the past few years, you could be forgiven for believing that understanding matter’s fundamentals is all about the Higgs boson – the “God particle” that explains where mass comes from.
The Higgs is undoubtedly important. But it is actually pretty insignificant for real stuff like you and me, accounting for just 1 or 2 per cent of normal matter’s mass. And the huge energy needed to make a Higgs means we’re unlikely to see technology exploiting it any time soon.
Two more familiar, though less glamorous, particles might offer more. Get to grips with their complexities, and we can begin to explain how the material universe came to exist and persist, and explore mind-boggling technologies: not just lightsabers, but new sorts of lasers and materials to store energy, too. That’s easier said than done, granted – but with a lot of computing muscle, it is what we are starting to do.
Chances are you know about protons and neutrons. Collectively known as nucleons, these two particles make up the nucleus, the meaty heart of the atom. (In terms of mass, the weedy electrons that orbit the nucleus are insignificant contributors to the atom.)
The headline difference between protons and neutrons is that protons have a positive …
