{"id":145464,"date":"2022-09-02T01:24:19","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T06:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/09\/surprise-protons-contain-a-subatomic-particle-thats-heavier-than-the-proton-itself"},"modified":"2022-09-02T01:24:19","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T06:24:19","slug":"surprise-protons-contain-a-subatomic-particle-thats-heavier-than-the-proton-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/09\/surprise-protons-contain-a-subatomic-particle-thats-heavier-than-the-proton-itself","title":{"rendered":"Surprise! Protons Contain a Subatomic Particle That\u2019s Heavier Than the Proton Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Protons are particles that exist in the nucleus of all atoms<\/a>, with their number defining the elements themselves. Protons, however, are not fundamental particles. Rather, they are composite particles made up of smaller subatomic particles, namely two \u201cup quarks\u201d and one \u201cdown quark\u201d bound together by force-carrying particles (bosons) called \u201cgluons.\u201d<\/p>\n

This structure isn\u2019t certain, however, and quantum physics suggests that along with these three quarks, other particles<\/a> should be \u201cpopping\u201d into and out of existence at all times, affecting the mass of the proton. This includes other quarks and even quark-antiquark pairs.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the deeper scientists have probed the structure of the proton<\/a> with high-energy particle collisions, the more complicated the situation has become. As a result, for around four decades, physicists have speculated that protons may host a heavier form of quark than up and down quarks called \u201cintrinsic charm quarks,\u201d but confirmation of this has been elusive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Protons are particles that exist in the nucleus of all atoms, with their number defining the elements themselves. Protons, however, are not fundamental particles. Rather, they are composite particles made up of smaller subatomic particles, namely two \u201cup quarks\u201d and one \u201cdown quark\u201d bound together by force-carrying particles (bosons) called \u201cgluons.\u201d This structure isn\u2019t certain, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}