Quark


In particle physics, a quark (pronounced ) is one of the two basic constituents of matter (the other are the leptons). Quarks are the only fundamental particles that interact through all four of the fundamental forces. The word was originally coined by Murray Gell-Mann as a nonsense word rhyming with "pork".[1] Later, he found the same word in James Joyce's book Finnegans Wake, where seabirds give "three quarks", akin to three cheers (probably onomatopoetically imitating a seabird call, like "quack" for ducks, as well as making a pun on the relationship between Munster and its provincial capital, Cork) in the passage "Three quarks for Muster Mark!/Sure he hasn't got much of a bark/And sure any he has it's all beside the mark." Further explanation for the use of the word "quark" may be derived from the fact that, at the time, there were only three known quarks in existance.