# Name this physicist

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-this-physicist/132873>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 18, 2002, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-this-physicist/132873 "2002-10-18T19:20:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2002, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-this-physicist/132873/1 "2002-10-18T19:20:58Z")

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He was one of the two most prominent in his day, which was, I believe, in the 1980s (at least, it was relatively recently).

I believe he was famous for postulating the existence of quarks, and for giving their various functions names like “charm,” etc.

He admonished his students not to concern overly themselves with the question of whether or not the sub-atomic particles they studies “really” existed, claiming, I think, that the question was irrlevant.

I need his name, and hopefully a quote from him concerning the above, for a paper I’m writing. Can anyone out there help me out?

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**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2002, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-this-physicist/132873/2 "2002-10-18T19:32:10Z")

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I Googled “charmed quarks physicist” and came up with [Murray Gell-Mann](http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/07/johnson.htm). Is that the one you’re thinking of?

The “other one” may well be Richard Feynman.

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**Author:** ![Donut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@Donut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donut)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2002, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-this-physicist/132873/3 "2002-10-18T19:38:13Z")

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I believe you’re looking for [Murray Gell-Mann](http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/People/mgm/) . At least he’s the one who came up with the name “quarks”, apparently from _Finnegan’s Wake._

And I see I was beat out by Scarlett, oh well.

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**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2002, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-this-physicist/132873/4 "2002-10-18T19:47:13Z")

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FWIW, according to the info I have, **Sheldon Glashow** came up with the name “charm” (or “charmed”) for the fourth quark.

> [@](#):
>
> Gell-Mann’s original formulation had three species of quarks, given the names up, down, and strange. Just a year later, when the quark model was still highly speculative, Glashow, in collaboration with the physicist James D. Bjorken, proposed adding a fourth quark. He called it the charmed quark because it “worked like a charm” in suppressing certain events predicted by the three-quark theory but not, in fact, observed. In 1970 Glashow, with John Iliopoulos and Luciano Maiani, gave even stronger arguments for the existence of the charmed quark. Particles incorporating charmed quarks were discovered in 1974, confirming Glashow’s prediction and supporting the quark hypothesis.

Source: WilsonWeb Biographies Plus.

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**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2002, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-this-physicist/132873/5 "2002-10-19T00:35:30Z")

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Thanks muchly, y’all, for the tips.