Murray Gell-Mann Knihy

Today it is known that the atomic nuclei are composed of smaller constituents, the quarks. A quark is always bound with two other quarks, forming a baryon or with an antiquark, forming a meson. The quark model was first postulated in 1964 by Murray Gell-Mann — who coined the name “quark” from James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake — and by George Zweig, who then worked at CERN. In the present theory of strong interactions — Quantum Chromodynamics proposed by H Fritzsch and Gell-Mann in 1972 — the forces that bind the quarks together are due to the exchange of eight gluons.On the 50th anniversary of the quark model, this invaluable volume looks back at the developments and achievements in the elementary particle physics that eventuated from that beautiful model. Written by an international team of distinguished physicists, each of whom have made major developments in the field, the volume provides an essential overview of the present state to the academics and researchers.

This book is about how the wonderful diversity of the universe can arise out of a set of fairly simple basic laws. It is written by an expert in both the fundamental laws and the complex structures that they can produce.' Stephen Hawking's acclaim of Murray Gell-Mann's literary debut is typical of the reception the book received on first publication in 1994. From one of the twentieth century's greatest scientists comes this unique, highly personal vision of the connections between the basic laws of physics and the complexity and diversity of the natural world. THE QUARK AND THE JAGUAR - the simple and the complex - is an irresistibly engaging and rewarding introduction to the life's work of physicist, polymath and Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann.