| quark color | has definition An attribute which distinguishes otherwise identical quarks of the same flavor. Three colors red, green and blue - are required to distinguish the three valence quarks of which baryons are composed. It must be stressed that these colors are just labels and have nothing to do with ordinary color. Color is the source of the strong force which binds quarks together inside baryons and mesons, and so the three colors (r, g, b) can be thought of as three different color charges analogous to electric charge. |  |
| has definition Each flavor of quark can exist in three variations, called colors, usually labeled as red, green, and blue. The color of a quark has no relation to its visual appearance, but the word color is used because there are three variations, in analogy with the three primary colors. Measurable properties of the quarks, such as electric charge and mass, depend on the flavor but not the color, but the color is responsible for the interactions that bind the quarks together (see Yang-Mills theories). Individual quarks cannot exist independently, but are forever confined within baryons or mesons, each of which is colorless. Baryons achieve colorlessness by being composed of three quarks, one of each color, while mesons achieve colorlessness by pairing each colored quark with its corresponding antiquark. | |
| has definition Property of quarks that expresses their behavior under the strong force. Analogous to the concept of charge in electromagnetism, except that, whereas there are two electrical charges (plus and minus), the strong force involves three color charges - red, green, and blue. The term is whimsical, and has nothing to do with color in the conventional sense, any more than quark "flavor", which determines the weak force behavior of quarks, has anything to do with taste. | |
| is an instance of quantum quantity | |
| quantity | has unit | |
| number | has value | |
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