WHAT'S HIDING IN THE QUARKS?

THE ANSWER COULD SMASH PHYSICISTS' MODEL OF REALITY

PHYSICISTS WERE UNDERSTANDABLY overjoyed in 1994 when they discovered the top quark. At last, after 17 years of searching, they had found the sixth--and, according to the theorists, the last--of matter's tiniest, most fundamental building blocks. The most troublesome loose end in the so-called Standard Model of particle physics had been tidied up.

Or so they thought. According to a report in the current Science, the same people who discovered the top quark may have inadvertently made a much more revolutionary discovery. Contrary to what physicists have believed for the past 30 years, quarks may not be the most basic units...

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