In April I traveled with my family to Chicago, Illinois. We took a day trip out of the city and ended up in the small town of Batavia, Illinois where we met Mr. Fitzgerald Hicks of Quantum Mechanics, Inc. This is the story he told us:
“Today, I’d like ta sell ya on Quantum Mechanics, Inc. Now, we’re small mechanics, quantum does stand for the smallest amount of something after all, but we can compete with your bigger brands like GM or Ford.
Just ta get ya back to the beginnin‘, close ta the big bang as ya can get, let me tell ya that here at Quantum Mechanics we guarantee ta get ya ta the heart of matter. Yes siree, we do not fuss over the chrome finish or the mag wheels. We focus all our attention right at the energy source.
At Quantum Mechanics, Inc. we care about power and speed.
Now, step right over here and let me introduce to ya our 2001-2002 line up. We call this group The Standard Model. We think it’s goin‘ ta be a big seller cause it’s very retro just like that PT Cruiser. The Standard Model is all about fundamentals.
Before I start in on all the details about The Standard Model, let me just give ya a bit of background about where we are comin‘ from. Now, ya might remember that for years we had the same basic line-up. We called it our Atom Collection. Within the Atom we had your basic Electron, very sporty, had that big negative charge. We had the Proton, always positive, a family favorite. And last, but not least, the Neutron, top of the line, neutral, not too negative, not too positive.
Now, Electron, Proton, and Neutron were good sellers for us. Ya probably saw a lot of them around when ya were in high school. We’re still mighty proud of them, but we have found in the last two decades that we can go smaller and faster.
It has taken us at Quantum Mechanics a lot of patience and hard research to get where we are today. Our particle accelerator labs at CERN and FERMILAB have put in a lot of hours of hard work ta give up The Standard Model that I can show ya today.
Okay, I think we’re ready ta look over The Standard Model Selection.
Our Standard Model group is not anywhere near complete, but we have a lot of confidence in the particles that we can show ya today.
We generally refer ta this group as Hadrons. When yer talkin‘ about a Hadron ya generally mean any particle that is made up of Quarks and Gluons. Now, we’ll come back ta the details of Quarks and Gluons, but for now I just want ya ta get familiar with the name Hadron. Ever-thing I’m goin‘ ta show ya today will be some type of a Hadron.
I have two types of Hadron for ya ta check out today. First of all, let’s look at a Baryon. Now, all the Baryons will have three Quarks inside. We never have any Baryons with more or less than three.
Even though ever-one of our Baryons has three Quarks, ya still have options. Ya can have a Baryon Proton which’ll give ya 2 Up Quarks and 1 Down Quark or ya can have a Baryon Neutron which’ll give ya 2 Down Quarks and 1 Up Quark. The other Baryons we offer are the Anti-Proton, Lambda and Omega.
If ya want a Hadron that is a bit smaller than a Baryon, then I can show ya the Hadron Meson. Ever Meson just has 2 Quarks. Our most popular Mesons would have ta be the Pion or the K Meson- very snug, very reliable. We do have other Mesons like Rho, D+ and Eta-C.
I don’t make up those names. They just get sent down the pike from the big guys at the lab. Lord knows that LeSabre or Cadillac would be more sensible, but here we are.
Here would prob’ly be a good time ta explain a little about the Quark features. Now, before when we were talkin‘ about fundamental particles, we were talkin‘ about Quarks. The Quark is the smallest unit of matter known in our Universe today. Ya can’t break matter down ta anything any smaller.
At Quantum Mechanics, Inc. we offer 6 types or “flavors” of Quarks. Just like Baskin Robbins, we think some day we may have a lot more flavors, but findin‘ and studyin‘ these particles is pretty hard work.
The 6 flavors of Quarks we are prepared ta show ya today are Up Quark, Down Quark, Charm Quark, Strange Quark, Top Quark and Bottom Quark.
Ya can combine these 6 Quark flavors ta make up the Baryons and Mesons, 3 in each Baryon 2 in each Meson.
Quarks are the inner workin’s of the Baryon and the Meson. Quarks have mass from the lightest which is the Up Quark ta the heaviest, the Top Quark. Ever’ Quark has a charge- Up, Charm and Top are positive while Down, Strange and Bottom are negative.
Quarks stay put inside the Baryon Proton or Baryon Neutron because they are held together by strong forces called Gluon. Gluon forces are the strongest forces we have ever seen at Quantum Mechanics. In fact, we’ve found that the harder ya try ta pull apart the Gluon, the stronger it gets.
At Fermilab in order ta look at each Quark by itself we have ta use our big ring particle accelerator. We’ll take a beam of Protons and accelerate it around the ring until it is goin‘ at 99.997% of the speed of light and then we’ll smash those Protons smack dab into Anti-Protons comin‘ in the opposite direction. The force of those Protons goin‘ that fast hittin‘ those Anti-Protons goin‘ that fast is about all we’ve found that’ll break up that Gluon and allow the Quarks to fly apart into individual particles of matter.
Now, you’ve pretty much been introduced here ta what we consider The Standard Model at Quantum Mechanics, Inc. We do have a real peculiar Hadron that doesn’t actually have any stable Quarks in it, only Gluon Forces. We call it the “Glueball,” but ya know I think the only market for it will be those former Hummer owners, folks that just need somethin‘ tough and a bit out of the ordinary.
Right now, we’re workin‘ on a new Meson call Higgs Boson. It’s goin‘ ta have a lot of angular momentum and be very smart, but we just can’t put our finger on it, yet.
I can guarantee that you won’t find anything smaller, more fundamental to life than what Quantum Mechanics, Inc. can offer ya today. Quantum Mechanics- where it’s all about matter.”
If you go to Chicago, it’s worth the drive to Batavia. You can always learn something fascinating from Mr. Fiz Hicks!