In physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, the Eightfold Way is a term coined by American physicist Murray Gell-Mann

Murray Gell-Mann

Murray Gell-Mann is an American physicist and linguist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles...

 for a theory organizing subatomic baryon

Baryon

A baryon is a composite particle made up of three quarks . Baryons and mesons belong to the hadron family, which are the quark-based particles...

s and meson

Meson

In particle physics, mesons are subatomic particles composed of one quark and one antiquark, bound together by the strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of sub-particles, they have a physical size, with a radius roughly one femtometer: 10−15 m, which is about the size of a proton...

s into octets (alluding to the Noble Eightfold Path

Noble Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path , is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. It is used to develop insight into the true nature of phenomena and to eradicate greed, hatred, and delusion...

 of Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

). The theory was independently proposed by Israeli physicist Yuval Ne'eman

Yuval Ne'eman

Yuval Ne'eman , was a renowned Israeli theoretical physicist, military scientist, and politician. He was a minister in the Israeli government in the 1980s and early 1990s.-Biography:...

 and led to the subsequent development of the quark model

Quark model

In physics, the quark model is a classification scheme for hadrons in terms of their valence quarks—the quarks and antiquarks which give rise to the quantum numbers of the hadrons....

.

In addition to organizing the mesons and spin

Spin (physics)

In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is a fundamental characteristic property of elementary particles, composite particles , and atomic nuclei.It is worth noting that the intrinsic property of subatomic particles called spin and discussed in this article, is related in some small ways,...

-1/2 baryons into an octet, the principles of the Eightfold Way also applied to the spin-3/2 baryons, forming a decuplet. However, one of the particles of this decuplet had never been previously observed. Gell-Mann called this particle the and predicted in 1962 that it would have a strangeness

Strangeness

In particle physics, strangeness S is a property of particles, expressed as a quantum number, for describing decay of particles in strong and electromagnetic reactions, which occur in a short period of time...

 −3, electric charge

Electric charge

Electric charge is a physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. Electric charge comes in two types, called positive and negative. Two positively charged substances, or objects, experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two...

 −1 and a mass near . In 1964, a particle closely matching these predictions was discovered by a particle accelerator

Particle accelerator

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator. There are two basic types: electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators.In...

 group at Brookhaven

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...

. Gell-Mann received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics

Nobel Prize in Physics

The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...

 for his work on the theory of elementary particle

Elementary particle

In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle not known to have substructure; that is, it is not known to be made up of smaller particles. If an elementary particle truly has no substructure, then it is one of the basic building blocks of the universe from which...

s.

The Eightfold Way may be understood in modern terms as a consequence of flavor

Flavour (particle physics)

In particle physics, flavour or flavor is a quantum number of elementary particles. In quantum chromodynamics, flavour is a global symmetry...

 symmetries between various kinds of quark

Quark

A quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never directly...

s. Since the strong nuclear force

Strong interaction

In particle physics, the strong interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature, the others being electromagnetism, the weak interaction and gravitation. As with the other fundamental interactions, it is a non-contact force...

 affects quarks the same way regardless of their flavor, replacing one flavor of quark with another in a hadron should not alter its mass very much. Mathematically, this replacement may be described by elements of the SU(3) group

Special unitary group

The special unitary group of degree n, denoted SU, is the group of n×n unitary matrices with determinant 1. The group operation is that of matrix multiplication...

. The octets and other arrangements are representations

Representation theory

Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by representing their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studiesmodules over these abstract algebraic structures...

 of this group. For a more detailed explanation of this fact, see particle physics and representation theory

Particle physics and representation theory

In physics, the connection between particle physics and representation theory is a natural connection, first noted by Eugene Wigner, between the properties of elementary particles and the representation theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras...

.