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New Subatomic Particle Discovered

Posted by michael on from the charmed-life dept.

Cyndi writes "A new subatomic particle has been discovered by researchers at Stanford. It seems to be "an unusual configuration of a charm quark and a strange anti-quark"."

9 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Naked charm!?! by MarkusQ · · Score: 4, Funny

    From the article, it sounds as if this particle would exhibit naked charm (and naked (anti-)strange as well I assume). This seems astounding to me (at a quarter to five AM at least). Last I heard that sort of thing was on mother nature's short list of no-nos.

    -- MarkusQ

    1. Re:Naked charm!?! by barawn · · Score: 4, Informative

      Might be a little too early in the morning. This guy is just a resonance of D_s+, which has a mass of 1968 MeV, and also is made up of c & s_bar. Naked charm just means the particle has a c and no c_bar, which is perfectly fine. Charmed particles have been around for a while now.

  2. What the Quark? by Neck_of_the_Woods · · Score: 4, Funny


    Could someone explain the who Anti-Quark, Naked Quark, Bio-Polar Quark, Spring Break Quark, and Got my head up my ass CIO Quark please?

    --
    Neck_of_the_Woods
    #/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
    1. Re:What the Quark? by reiggin · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Anti-Quark" can be vaguely defined as any Mac OS X user or any Adobe programmer.

  3. importance is in the details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The combination was not the surprise, but the missing mass is, which suggests that the theoretical calculation of the binding force is incorrect (though such calculation is often an approximation themself) This usually signals that some aspect of the theory on the force is wrong or that their is yet another particle that was undetected, thus robbing some mass away. (Neutrino was 'discovered' this way)

  4. Must be LOVE! by SillySlashdotName · · Score: 5, Funny

    a charm quark with ... an anti strange [quark]

    Love makes strange bedfellows...

    This force, unlike most others in nature, becomes stronger as the distance between the two quarks increases.

    Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

    They have discovered the LOVE particle!

    --
    Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
  5. Quark is so overrated... by jbarr · · Score: 4, Funny

    I prefer Neelix's portrayal of the Grand Proxy in "False Profits"!

    --
    My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
  6. Don't forget this one: by 0x00000dcc · · Score: 4, Funny
    Don't forget: the Bill O'Reilly quark, which, if combined with other quarks to make an electron, has no spin ...

    I kill me.

    --

    -- (Score:i, Imaginary)

  7. Binding force gets stronger with distance? by Lafe · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "The new particle called the Ds (2317), which combines a charm quark with another heavy quark - an anti strange, has unexpected properties that will provide insight into the force that binds the quarks together. This force, unlike most others in nature, becomes stronger as the distance between the two quarks increases."
    So, if I read this right, as long as you have enough of these particles, or none of them, you're fine.

    But what happens if you've only got one of them here, and the nearest other one is in a neighboring galaxy? Massive destruction? Infinite attraction? Or just enough attraction to get a geek a date?