The atomic nucleus, once thought indivisible, is now known to consist of protons and neutrons, that in turn are made of quarks. A proton is two up quarks and a down quark, and a neutron is two down quarks and an up, so the odd quark charges add nicely to give a positive proton and a neutral neutron (Table 4.4). How then do quarks combine to give stable protons and neutrons?
Table 4.5 shows how one quark can share photons with another to stablise it. In 4.5A, some free photons of one quark fill channels in the neutral axis of another, to connect the quarks. Note that the result produces no remainder in either quark. In 4.5B, this frees some photons in the second quark’s neutral axis to return the favor, to further join the quarks. Being now connected, photons in the second quark now start occupying the free channels of the first quark’s free axis until it is full. Again, this sharing doesn’t alter the charge of either quark, but the result is that both axes are now complete and so stable (Table 4.5C). Photon sharing then stabilizes the first quark by filling the channels of its free axis.
This completes the first quark, but the second quark can also fill its free axis by linking to a third quark, that can fill its free axis by linking to the neutral axis of the first. In Figure 4.13, quarks in a triangle structure can share photons so they all become stable, and the result is a proton or neutron depending on the up or down quark mix. Now what binds the quarks isn’t magical gluons from nowhere but photon sharing, which pulls rather than pushes them together.
What then are the standard model’s red, blue, and green color charges? Each quark has to turn a different way to link in a triangle, so these charges are just its orientation. In the standard model world of inert particles, every change needs an agent to cause it but in a world of quantum events, every cycle explores a new option. event. Each photon tries to occupy any channel it can and if it fails, because another got there first, it just tries again. There is no predefined plan, just a free-for-all that tries every option, including different quark orientations.
To illustrate this, imagine pouring wine on a stack of empty glasses. When the water fills one glass, it just flows on to the next, until every glass is full. Nothing has to direct this activity, to decide which water ends up in which glass, as they always fill. Now suppose that when the water fills every glass, the weight restarts the system, so all the glasses empty and a new pouring cycle begins. Likewise, quarks explore every option to fill every channel, then a restart repeats the cycle.
In general, the quantum world tries every option until every channel overloads repeatedly, in a stable result that is a new entity. Protons, neutrons, electrons, and neutrinos then all form based on the same principle, which is the law of all action. Seeing matter as inert particles that only change when acted upon is like the nineteenth-century tabula rasa theory, that children are blank slates upon which we write. We no longer believe that, so why assume the whole universe is a blank slate? The quantum flux can push itself around, with no need for invisible particles from imaginary fields.
To recap, protons and neutrons form when quarks share photons in a triangle structure. The strong force that binds quarks together in the atomic nucleus is then based on photon sharing that occurs naturally when they orientate correctly, not gluons with color charges spawned by a strong field. But what then explains the weak field that the standard model also proposes?