Colour Story1 #722607 For the strong interaction, the charge (i.e. the fact of being affected by this force) is associated with a specific parameter that can take on 3 values. By analogy with the decomposition of white light, physicists refer to the charge as a "colour" and its 3 states are called "blue", "green" and "red". This description is enriched by "anticolours" to characterise the antimatter quarks, or antiquarks. A composite particle made of quarks, a hadron, is "white": the colours of its component sum up. |
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