I found an answer to a question I had and that is that quarks have no spatial extent. But how is that possible? Everything has to have some spatial extent; to keep continuing on and on, right?
Asked
Active
Viewed 260 times
1
Qmechanic
- 201,751
-
Why is that strange? If you elaborate, it will be easier to answer. – Rd Basha Aug 21 '22 at 10:02
-
"Everything has to have some spatial extent; to keep continuing on and on, right?". One could equally well say that everything has to be bright red to keep continuing on and on. – WillO Aug 21 '22 at 13:22
1 Answers
1
To the best of our knowledge, all of the quarks, leptons, and bosons of the standard model are point-like particles, which are mathematical abstractions with zero size. There is also something called an extended particle, a proton, for example, has a fixed size but is said to have a "fuzzy" edge. But even these point-like particles still have an extended effect, due to the effect of the field surrounding them. Here's a picture from Fermilab (which is where most of this info came from).
nosbig64
- 21