[Nuclear Chemistry] Quirky Quarks, Quintessence of Matter

Background:
Quarks have to do with Nuclear Chemistry. This is because they deal with the nuclear area of an atom. While we already know about subatomic particles -- protons, neutrons, and electrons -- there are actually more. These are what quarks deal with.
To better conceptualize quarks: just as matter is the building block of the things we see in our everyday lives, quarks are the building blocks of matter. 
In addition to a quark, there is also another fundamental particle of matter: lepton. Quarks and leptons, in addition to their own unique entities, can be seen as classification structures for subatomic particles. For example, an electron falls under the umbrella of a lepton. Now, protons and neutrons are a little different, in that they are made up of quarks. This seems to make sense, as electrons and protons/neutrons have greatly differing masses.
To add a level of detail, there are 6 different types of quarks, differentiated by mass and charge. Their names are: up; down; strange; charm; bottom; and top. (The first time I saw their names, I was quite flabbergasted, as I imagine you are too. They seem more suited to a video game... charm?). But at such a infinitely microscopic scale, where things can get very strange when compared to our world, perhaps it is fitting that names be strange as well. (There is actually so much more terminology -- mesons, baryons, hadrons (like the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland), bosons (like the Higgs boson) -- (as there is for all fields), but we'll try to keep things relatively simple and straightforward.)

To elaborate on the composition of protons and neutrons, protons are composed of 2 up quarks and 1 down quark; neutrons are composed of 1 up quark and 2 down quarks.
Now, at this point, you may be wondering: Of what use, of what importance are these quarks? Well, quarks are important because they help us explain the "patterns of nuclear binding and decay" (textbook). However, quarks are still a theory, as we do not have any hard evidence of an individual quark's existence. Indeed, quarks (and leptons) are quite deep into the realm of theory, and those who study them are called particle physicists (though they are relevant to chemistry as well).
Current Research & Developments:
There is definitely a lot of research, specifically basic research, going on in the field of study of quarks (as would be expected of theoretical subjects). For example, there is basic research being performed on the masses of quarks, specifically on what kind of experiment to conduct so that we can actually measure their masses, as quarks have not yet been isolated individually. But more generally, the properties/characteristics of quarks we do know, their spin, their charge, the 6 different types of them, some of those types making up protons and neutrons, all that is basic research, learning for the sake of increasing knowledge. Now, although there is a great amount of basic research being performed, the same cannot be said of applied research, as all this basic research is being performed in the hopes of some day finding some amazing application to real-life of such an un-real-life thing. This is what the Brookhaven National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy believes, which states "it's impossible to predict what RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) will provide in terms of technology for the future. It continues, stating, "Because RHIC is pushing further out on the high-temperature frontier than ever before, any new understanding about the structure of matter arising from RHIC may not immediately or ever lead to practical applications as did experiments in the last century." Despite this bit of pessimism, if the history of scientific advancements in the study of the structure of matter is any indication, in the future, some applied research will yield a solution that will solve some problem, or, perhaps more likely, evolve into technological development of a product that will improve quality of life. But as the state of the science stands now, quarks are too much of a theoretically mysterious thing (which is why so much basic research is being done), for there to be a tangible application to real life yet.
Relation to Key Terms:
As aforementioned, protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. And as with alpha and beta decay, and gamma rays, quarks possess electrical charges. Specifically, the up quark possesses a positive 2/3 charge, while the down quark possesses a negative 1/3 charge. With this information, it makes sense that protons are made of 2 up quarks and 1 down quark ((2/3)*2-1/3), giving it its overall +1 charge; and neutrons made of 1 up quark and 2 down quarks ((-1/3)*2+2/3), giving it its overall no charge. 

Also, the process of beta decay, whereby through the emission of a beta particle (an electron) in an atom, a neutron can effectively become a proton by the resulting increase of 1 in electrical charge, is thought to be the result of a more fundamental, quark process. Specifically, this process actually converts "a neutron into a proton (or the reverse) by changing the identity of their constituent quarks," which are the up and down quarks (Scientific American). This is an excellent example of a transmutation, on a level one deeper than the standard transmutation. Instead of changing the identity of a nucleus by changing its number of protons, this kind of transmutation changes the identity of a proton by changing its number of quarks. Another relation to key terms takes us all the way back to Chapter 4 and Electron Configurations. Specifically, since quarks possess spin, they in addition to electrons must obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle, which states that electrons (and quarks) must possess opposite spin states to exist in the same atom. In another relation, quarks, of which there are 6 different types, have unique symbols, just as have the elements on the Periodic Table. And finally, to tie in quarks to the grand scheme of things we've studied this year in Chemistry. As the government-sponsored Brookhaven National Laboratory (bnl.gov) explains in its article, "Why Does Quark Matter 'Matter'?" the history of science can be described in one way as a continuous and constant pursuit to discover the things that make up the things we see in everyday life, and then to discover the smallest building block, in search of the most fundamental substance that makes up everything. As the article eloquently puts in perspective:

"Since the days of the early Greek philosophers, science has been on a continual quest to find the smallest piece — the most fundamental building block — forming the substance of the universe." 

This takes us all the way back to Democritus (speaking of those "early Greek philosophers") and his original idea of the atom, but with the flaw of its being indivisible. This flaw is how the structure of matter was a theory of matter back then. Back then, the atom was the smallest component of matter; that idea was revolutionary at that time, so to somehow imagine smaller than that, would probably have been looked as crazy. So it may be today, with quarks, as they are believed to be indivisible. Quarks are the smallest, most fundamental piece of matter we know of so far, but tracing the evolution and extension of the structure of matter in the past, going from Democritus to Dalton to Thomson to Millikan to Goldstein to Chadwick to Rutherford to Bohr to de Broglie to Heisenberg to Schrödinger, there is reason to believe that there might be something still more fundamental than Quarks...

Works Cited

• Textbook (Modern Chemistry (Texas))
• http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Particles/quark.html
• homepage.smc.edu
• https://www.bnl.gov/rhic/quarkMatter.asp
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-inner-life-of-quarks-extreme-physics-special/
• My notes from way back when in the school year :)