LHC Spies Hints of Infant Universe

techbeat writes "The big bang machine may already be living up to its nickname, writes New Scientist. Researchers on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, have seen hints of what may be the hot, dense state of matter thought to have filled the universe in its first nanoseconds."

Comments

Quark gluon plasma?

[jmizrahi]

The article seems to say that sufficiently high energy density results in free quarks. I was under the impression that the theory of the strong nuclear force demanded that all observable particles are "colorless," i.e. quarks are never free, but only appear in colorless combinations of mesons and hadrons. Could someone more knowledgeable clarify whether this phenomenon is a violation of the "nature is colorless" law, or whether the article simply does a poor job of explaining a quark-gluon plasma?