Eightfold Way

American  

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.

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Etymology

Origin of Eightfold Way

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.

From Nature

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

From Nature

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.

From 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.

From Nature

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

From The Guardian