top quark
Americannoun
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A quark with a charge of +2/3. Its mass is larger than that of all the other quarks and is about 360,000 times that of the electron.
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See Table at subatomic particle
Etymology
Origin of top quark
First recorded in 1975–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Without Veltman’s and ’t Hooft’s work, discovery of the top quark would have been impossible,” Homer A. Neal, a physicist at the University of Michigan, said at the time the Nobel was awarded in 1999.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 8, 2021
Tevatron researchers discovered the top quark, another subatomic particle, and helped lay the groundwork for CERN’s discovery of the Higgs boson.
From New York Times ● May 28, 2018
At that point it could produce pairs of Higgs bosons and allow researchers to explore how the Higgs couples to itself and also interacts with the heaviest particle of matter, the top quark.
From Nature ● Aug. 29, 2012
Some say that discovery merits a Nobel Prize; others say the top quark had to be there.
From Science Magazine ● Sep. 30, 2011
Assuming Fermilab has indeed found the top quark, what is left for high-energy physics?
From Scientific American ● Sep. 29, 2011
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
