Home » Segments » Truth and Beauty Quarks

Truth and Beauty Quarks

Play episode

In the 1970s, physicists predicted the discovery of two quarks called T and B for top and bottom. Some poetically-minded physicists argued that the T and B quarks should instead be called truth and beauty, but the terms top and bottom eventually won out. For the record, beauty lasts about one picosecond before decaying — at least when you’re talking about quarks. This is part of a complete episode.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More from this show

Have a Dingle Day!

After an international team of scientists and staffers spent six months at a research station in Antarctica, their accents changed ever so slightly, according to an acoustic analysis by German researchers. The slang terms they shared include dingle...

Pirate Booty vs. Body Booty

Is the booty as in shake your booty related to a pirate’s booty? The booty that means “derriere” is an alteration of botty, which is itself an alteration of bottom. The booty that means “loot” or “plunder”...

Recent posts

Segments