Eightfold Way

noun

Physics.

1. a scheme for classifying hadrons according to a symmetry principle based on strangeness and isotopic spin: a forerunner of the quark model.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Eightfold Way¹

1925–30; so named because hadrons with low mass and spin form groups of eight; with jocular allusion to the Eightfold Way of Buddhism ( Eightfold Path )

Example Sentences

A few years later, he devised a scheme to codify particles, grouping all those known into eight families — the Eightfold Way, he named it in joking homage to Buddhism.

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Over lunch, his host Robert Serber asked Gell-Mann if the particles of the Eightfold Way were formed by mixing and matching subunits.

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It’s not hard to show Gell-Mann’s eightfold way pictures, and to explain how the particles in them can be made from quarks.

Read more on Scientific American

The rules classified subatomic particles called hadrons into eight groups, a scheme he named the eightfold way in a reference to Buddhist philosophy.

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He called his method the “eightfold way” after the Buddhist Eightfold Path to enlightenment.

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