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Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

The new particle is made up of a 'beauty quark' and a 'beauty anti-quark', which are then bound together

Or in more common terms: It's a bottom/antibottom pair.

I would have loved to see the names "truth" and "beauty" catch on for the third generation quarks, but sadly "top" and "bottom" won.

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TBH i dislike those quirky names because they become fodder for popular media nonsense. Just like the way the "God particle" can be misunderstood for having something to do with religion.

Higgs actually wanted to call it "the goddamn particle."

Actually it was Leon Lederman who wrote book "The God Particle".

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/30/higgs.boson.ce...

That is a great book. It's well written and touches on details that most "physics for the masses" books skip. I also regret the use of the term God Particle though. I know he was being cheeky but it is all too easy for people to grab onto something like that and believe that this is some sort of religious quest.

I can't fathom the amount of physicist blood that would be shed in the crusades that would follow.

> but sadly "top" and "bottom" won.

Bottom was found before top iirc, this led to a rash of publications on topless quark theories.

I'd rather have topless quark theories than truthless quark theories!

One of my quantum physics professors liked to say it was fitting they were able to find beauty but almost despaired of finding truth.

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