Without getting too Clintonesque, the resolution to any disagreement here most likely depends on the meaning of “exist”… (or what is ‘is’)...
If the lifetime is sufficiently short, then either stance is viable. A ‘meme’ exists for quarks, which if nothing else, guarantees (almost) eternal life. There is one huge advantage in favor of the Stubbs alternative model. It provides a universe with an equal amount of matter and antimatter. The disparity between the two (matter vs antimatter) has always been the main criticism of the standard model. The is no satisfactory alternative for a large disparity. Stubbs handles that most basic problem elegantly enough that if nothing else, he has created a new meme which will strengthen over time. In the same way that other dualities are rationalized, this one can be handled the same way. Waves and particles coexist. Quarks and neutrinos, which began life as mathematical constructs, can likewise be both real and imaginary… as can phonons, phasons, magnons and so on. In many ways, quasiparticles are more real than so-called real particles, since they can explain details that are otherwise mysterious if not incomprehensible. Bottom line: when neither ‘either’ nor ‘or’ are sufficient, we must find a way to accept ‘both,’ as distasteful as that may be. From: Nigel Dyer Bob Up until a year or so ago I might have gone along with the idea that quarks do not exist. However, my son has produced a nice paper from which the fundamental particles (electrons, neutrinos and quarks) emerge in such a beautiful way that I am now completely convinced that they are real. The challenge is to get the paper accepted, something this group will be well familiar with Nigel bobcook wrote: Robin— Quarks are merely a mathematical scheme to help make sense of high energy physics. IMHO the do not exist. I will send you a separate study of electron scattering experiments that shed light on the structure of protons and neutrons.
