Eightfold way (physics)

The pseudoscalar meson octet. Particles along the same horizontal line share the same strangeness, s, while those on the same left-leaning diagonals share the same charge, q (given as multiples of the elementary charge).

In physics, the eightfold way is an organizational scheme for a class of subatomic particles known as hadrons that led to the development of the quark model. Both the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann and the Israeli physicist Yuval Ne'eman independently and simultaneously proposed the idea in 1961.[1][2][a] The name comes from Gell-Mann's (1961) paper and is an allusion to the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gell-Mann-1961-TID-12608 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ne-eman-1961-08 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Young-Freedman-2004-Sears-Zemansky was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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