The Strange Charm of Quarks

While the first evidence for quarks may have been around since 1968, I certainly don’t recall the Standard Model of particle theory let alone charm quarks when I was in school.  Yet atomic theory was being contemplated by Indian sages such as Kanada founder of Vaisheshika philosophy (200 BC).  These early pioneers developed complex theories on the elemental properties of atoms and the world of form as well as formlessness, well before they had the tools to test molecular theory.

Amazing still is that more than two thousand years later and as much as $6-10 billion dollars a pop (only small pun intended) for a Large Hadron Collider (LHC) we still have to rely on indirect evidence to prove the existence of a quark.

Simply put, as I can really only grasp the most elementary explanation of elemental physics, there is no way to actually see a quark … we can only perceive the path of it’s wake as it travels.  Whether we are pummeling particles to estimate their mass through abstraction or analyzing miles of data generated from multi-mile-long proton et al. colliders, the evidence that the strange charm of these upside down top/bottom pairs is to see if the results match  the theory.

That which we can not see, yet through experimentation or deep inquiry we can track its existence, is perhaps not only the source of particle theory but Source itSelf.  A quick Google of God and Physics and you’ll see the convergence of Science and Spirit is coming ever closer to nuclear fusion or at the very least the Higgs boson —  “God particle.”

Whether our belief is based on the scriptures, sanskrit or shear cynicisms of faith, each of us have moments when we have seen that which lies in the wake of the One.  Whether we react in wonderment or withholding, the seed of the seeker has been planted deep in the soil of our soul.

Just this week my dear friend told me of how a prolonged and pain-filled situation had been causing her much mental stress and fitful nights of circular inquiry.  Then within the space of an unbidden thought while sitting at her workstation, her own perception of the situation shifted on its heels and she was no longer caught in the web of her own story.

Though that shift was enough to make her take note of the freedom and space that appeared, within minutes the person who had been part of the play in her mind approached her desk with a smile she had not seen in a very long time.  Mysteriously uplifted, her colleague appeared to have also been transformed by some invisible act of kindness within the exact time and space of her own epiphany.

Indirect evidence of the existence of energy
that can only be seen
by the visible effects left in its path.

Perhaps it was just a coincidental quirk.
Though for my friend it was
most certainly a quark.