Tetraquarks and pentaquarks: An "unnatural" exotic form of matter has been discovered
Scientists working at the CERN laboratory recently announced the discovery of exotic matter not seen in nature: two distinct “tetraquarks” and “pentaquarks,” all of which were created in the collision between pairs of protons colliding with each other at very close velocities. lamp speed. The energy from this collision is literally transmuted into these exotic particles, a process governed by Einstein’s famous equation E = mc 2 . They will provide a new method for studying the forces that bind atomic centers together. What are quarks? Quarks were proposed in 1964 by American physicist Murray Gell-Mann as a solution to a major problem at the time. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, physicists discovered hundreds of particles with a dizzying array of masses, electric charges, lifetimes, and ways in which the particles interacted. So many different particles had been discovered with such diverse properties that researchers at the time referred to the zoo as a “particle zoo”. At