Father of Quarks
On May 24, 2019, The "Father of Quarks,"
the genius Murray Gell-Mann, passed away.
He is gone,
yet I am just beginning to explore the microcosmic world.
2019年5月24号，
“夸克之父”奇才默里·盖尔曼辞世。
夸克之父走了，
我却刚刚开始尝试了解微观世界。
In 1961, Gell-Mann developed the "Eightfold Way" theory.
What is the "Eightfold Way"?
It is actually a classification method,
similar to Mendeleev's periodic table of elements,
which arranges particles according to their properties.
Why is it called the "Eightfold Way"
instead of the One, Two, Three, Four, Five, or Sixfold Way?
Because it involves eight-dimensional space.
1961年，盖尔曼自己研究出了“八重道理论”。
什么是“八重道”？
其实是一种分类方法。
就像门捷列夫的元素周期表，
能把粒子根据性质排列起来。
为什么是“八”重道而不是123456道？
八指维数8。
In 1964,
the discovery of the W boson confirmed the theoretical predictions of the Eightfold Way;
it was also in this year that Gell-Mann further proposed the quark model,
ushering in a new journey for humanity to understand the microcosmic world.
1964年，
W-粒子的发现证实了八重法的理论预言；
也是在这一年，
盖尔曼进一步提出了夸克模型，
由此开启了人类对微观认识的新征程。
In 1969, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
1969年，取得诺贝尔物理学奖。
Currently, we know of six types of quarks.
The different types of quarks are referred to as "flavors":
they are the up (u), down (d), strange (s), charm (c), bottom (b), and top (t) quarks.
目前，我们已知的夸克有六种。
夸克的种类称为“味”：
它们是——
上（u）、下（d）、
奇（s）、粲（c）、底（b）和顶（t）。
The ud quarks are very stable and common,
while scbt quarks can only be produced by high-energy particle collisions and quickly decay.
ud夸克很稳定也很常见，
scbt则只能经由高能粒子的碰撞产生,
并很快衰变。
Two up quarks and one down quark form a proton,
while two down quarks and one up quark form a neutron.
两个上夸克和一个下夸克组成质子，
两个下夸克和一个上夸克组成中子。
As for why they are called "quarks,"
it was a spontaneous idea by Gell-Mann for the pronunciation of the word,
and he didn't know how to spell it.
By chance, he came across the sentence from the novel "Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce:
"Three quarks for Muster Mark."
"Quarks" fit his idea perfectly.
Thus, the indispensable "quarks" in the world of physics came into existence,
and the novel gained some popularity.
至于为什么起“夸克”这个词，
其实是盖尔曼突发奇想这么一个发音，
又不知道单词怎么拼，
偶然翻到小说《芬尼根的守灵夜》的句子：
“为马克老大三呼夸克。”
“夸克”对上了他的想法。
于是就有了物理界不可或缺的“夸克”，
还让小说火了一把。
Looking back on Gell-Mann's TED talk in 2007,
he made a joke:
"In the summer of 1665,
Newton made many contributions:
the law of universal gravitation,
Newton's laws of motion,
calculus, and the discovery that white light is composed of different colors of light.
Newton should have written a paper titled 'What I Did on My Summer Vacation.'"
回顾盖尔曼在2007年的TED演讲，
里边他开了个玩笑：
“牛顿1665年的夏天作出了很多贡献：
万有引力定律，牛顿运动定律，微积分，
并发现白光是由不同颜色的光组成的。
牛顿应该写一篇论文，
题目就叫《我在暑假都干了什么》。”
I think Gell-Mann could also write a paper:
titled "How I Slacked off When I Was Young."
At the age of 14,
he applied to Yale University, initially intending to study archaeology or languages,
but under his father's recommendation,
he fell into the "pit" of physics, obtained his Ph.D. at MIT at the age of 22,
and became a tenured professor at Caltech at 26.
That's the difference between a master and an ordinary person, I suppose.
我觉得盖尔曼也可以写一篇论文：
叫《我年轻的时候怎么摸鱼》。
他14岁申请耶鲁大学，
本来想学考古或语言，
结果在老爹安利下入了物理的“坑”，
22岁在麻省理工取得博士学位，
26岁成为加州理工终身教授。
这就是大师和凡人的区别吧。
Gell-Mann said, "Perhaps one day,
we will find a set of fundamental laws in the universe
that unify particles and forces at a basic level,
and I call them 'the fundamental laws.'
Maybe we are not so far from discovering this law,
even if we can't see that day in our lifetime,
we can still believe in its existence.
What we do is constantly getting closer."
盖尔曼说：“也许终有一天，
我们会找出宇宙中，
关于粒子和力基本又统一的定律，
我管他们叫‘基本定律’。
也许我们现在离发现这个定律并非那么遥远，
即使在有生之年我们看不到这一天，
我们仍然可以相信它的存在。
我们所做的是不断地接近。”
