quark

Quark is a term used in physics to describe very small particles that make up matter. These particles combine to form protons and neutrons and come in six types or flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom. The word quark was coined by American physicist Murray Gell-Man in the early 1960s. Initially, Gell-Man used the term quork but later changed the spelling to quark after reading James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. The line "Three quarks for Muster Mark" from Finnegans Wake inspired Gell-Man to settle on the spelling quark. Quarks are fundamental particles that, along with electrons, have their mass controlled by the Higgs field. The Higgs field is a quantum field with a default value above zero, which gives mass to particles like electrons and quarks. If the Higgs field value were zero, these particles would be massless. The term quark has been used by physicists ever since Gell-Man introduced it. Quarks play a crucial role in understanding the composition of matter at a fundamental level.