[Skibane]

Mesons are particles that contain a quark and an antiquark that are held together by the strong nuclear force. Since there are six different "flavours" of quark - up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top - it is possible to form a large number of different mesons.

Ever get the feeling that we are inventing needlessly complex explanations for some (as yet unseen) simple phenomenon?

[Diddley]

[22]
Ever get the feeling that we are inventing needlessly complex explanations for some (as yet unseen) simple phenomenon?

Yup

[RatSlayer]

"Ever get the feeling that we are inventing needlessly complex explanations for some (as yet unseen) simple phenomenon? "

Yeah, I've been saying for a long time that particle theory needs to be sliced up by Occam's Razor. Unfortunately, there's isn't any other theory to replace it right now.

Maybe the string theory people will have a breakthrough in thirty or forty years and all these particles will be explained in a nice, neat manner.

[js1138]

Ever get the feeling that we are inventing needlessly complex explanations for some (as yet unseen) simple phenomenon?

Explanations actually get simpler as time goes on. First, chemistry reduced all the infinite varieties of matter to 90 some kinds of atoms, then atoms were reduced to thre kinds of particles, plus a zoo of mysterious sub-atomic particles. the current model has six particles and four forces.

The math gets harder but the number of entities goes down.

[SauronOfMordor]

Ever get the feeling that we are inventing needlessly complex explanations for some (as yet unseen) simple phenomenon?

Something like the complex "poly-cyclic" pre-Copernican theories to explain the movement of the planets in the sky, before Copernicus figured out "no, everything doesn't revolve around the earth, the planets revolve around the sun"