Quarks are fundamental particles . They are fermions which means they are the stuff out of which matter is actually made from.

Quarks can never be found on their own, since they are affected by the color force . In groups quarks build hadrons , particles built up of more than one quark. Even though quarks themselves have a color charge, the hadrons they build are always color neutral .

A special property of quarks is, that they have fractional electric charge , for example the up quark has an electric charge of 2/3. So far quarks are the only particles which have been found to have fractional electric charges.

Quarks Generation Symbol Flavor Electric Charge 1st d down -1/3 u up 2/3 2nd s strange -1/3 c charm 2/3 3rd b bottom -1/3 t top 2/3

There are six flavors of quarks, divided into three generations . The first generation consists of the down quark (d) und the up quark (u). These are the only quarks which appear naturally in our world. Then there's the strange and charm quarks (s and c), and the bottom or beauty quark (b) and the top or truth quark (t).

About Quark in German. (Quark)