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What are quarks made of?

Are quarks and leptons actually fundamental, or are they made up of even more fundamental particles? And is it true that many consider quarks and leptons are so small that they may be thought of as geometrical points in space with no spatial extension at all?

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migrated from theoreticalphysics.stackexchange.com Nov 25 '11 at 16:00

marked as duplicate by Ron Maimon, Qmechanic, dmckee Nov 26 '11 at 3:04


Related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/16048/2451 –  Qmechanic Nov 25 '11 at 16:09
This is an old and by now textbook subject (quarks and leptons are quantum fields, not classical point particles). There could be a question about substructure; Speculations about them as bound states of "preons" could be to a certain extent research related, but I don't think the OP is asking for a technical exposition. I therefore think this question is a better fit for physics.SE. –  user566 Nov 25 '11 at 16:29
This is a good question, but I think it really is duplicated by the one Qmechanic linked. So I'm inclined to close it as such, unless someone points out a reason to leave it open. Thoughts? –  David Z Nov 25 '11 at 21:40

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You have asked the $64K question here so it is hard to give a "real answer" here because I don't think anyone knows the answer. You could almost re-phrase your question and ask "is there a "solid" unitary anything? How can you have something that is not made of something even smaller than itself? Feynman said that nature may be like an onion with an infinite number of layers. You can peel away one layer only to find another layer.

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Yes, from the point of view of experiments (up to the current energies). No, from the point of view of some theories like String Theory!

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