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If you look at the proton, as an example, this composite particle can last for billions of years. The proton is composed of subunits called quarks. If we release the quarks from a proton, the released quarks do not last as very long; less than a fraction of a second. But if the quarks remain contained in the proton they can last as long as the proton. Why do quarks drastically lose life expectancy, if they leave the composites they occupy?
If we go the other way, atoms are made up of protons, electrons and neutrons. If we separate atoms into their components, only the neutrons will show a shorter life expectancy outside the atom composite; neutron decay. The proton and electron continue to exist for billions of years; longer than atoms. If we release the quarks from the proton, all their life expectancies become very brief. Why?
t would be like building a stone wall with field stones. If we knock out any stone from the composite wall, that stone will disappear almost immediately.
If we could add it back before it disappears, it can last for centuries in the walls or until the wall falls. Years ago, I pondered this question, and would like to present two possible explanations. The first explanation is connected to time dilation. Protons were formed at a time when the universe was denser, and had higher gravity and average GR affects. The quarks existed then and had the same life brief expectancy as they do now. However, at that time they were highly time dilated due to GR, when they formed the proton. This time dilation was retained inside the composite. Once you break the composite, the time dilation is lost, and their clocks speed up. Another explanation is that the energy that particle colliders add, to split a proton, adds energy to the quarks and alters their phase, such that what we see are not the same quarks states as in a low energy protons. At the very least, we add relativistic mass and EM energy, due to high velocity in magnetic fields, which then adds something to the composite not found in protons at ambient conditions. We end up with unstable sub particles.
Imagine breaking a pane of glass. Then your instructor tells you that the fragments of that breakage, can not be called glass, because now, the fragments weight differently and have a different size and shape, than the whole pane.And since the fragments weight differently, the fragments are different materials than the original pane. So, each fragment gets a new name.This is what Cern does. Complete waste of time.
Modern science believes that because the proton is more massive, that it is larger than an electron.
If you charge up, and contract down, electrons to the same energy levels and collide them, you will get 3 inverted quark fragments.
Everything there is, is combinations of charge.