From New World Encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search The six
flavors of quarks in three generations and their most likely
decay modes. Mass increases moving from the first generation on
the left to the third generation on the right. The mass of the
upper member of a pair is somewhat less than that of the lower
member of the pair.  In particle physics, a quark is one of the
elementary (or fundamental) particles that are the building
blocks of matter. Elementary particles are classified as
fermions and bosons, and fermions are subdivided into quarks and
leptons. Quarks are fermions that experience the strong
interaction (or strong nuclear force), which involves coupling
with the bosons known as gluons. In other words, quarks couple
with gluons to form composite particles such as protons and
neutrons. By comparison, a lepton is a fermion that does not
experience the strong interaction and does not couple with
gluons.  Leptons and quarks come in pairs, and in three
generations. Everyday matter is composed of t