Quantum chromodynamics possess an additional SU(3) gauge degree of freedom, later called color charge. Han and Nambu noted that quarks might interact via an octet of vector gauge bosons: the gluons. Since free quark searches consistently failed to turn up any evidence for the new particles, and because an elementary particle back then was "defined" as a particle which could be separated and isolated, Gell-Mann often said that quarks were merely convenient mathematical constructs, not real particles. The meaning of this statement was usually clear in context: He meant quarks are confined, but he also was implying that the strong interactions could
Particle zoo as the Standard Model, and includes quarks, bosons and leptons. Particle zoo In particle physics, the term particle zoo is used colloquially to describe a relatively extensive list of the then known "elementary particles" by comparison to the variety of species in a zoo. In the history of particle physics, the situation was particularly confusing in the late 1960s. Before the discovery of quarks, hundreds of strongly interacting particles (hadrons) were known, and believed to be distinct elementary particles in their own right. It was later discovered that they were not elementary particles, but rather composites of the quarks. The