CULTURE WATCH : Humor in the Lab: A Quirky Quark

Many people picture scientists as stuffy researchers who rarely venture beyond the lab. But scientists often reveal a whimsical, humorous side in their descriptions of the world.

Take quarks . The name of this fundamental particle was coined by physicist Murray Gell-Mann from a phrase in James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake”--”three quarks for Mister Mark.”

And quarks are believed to exist in six flavors (or types): the up quark, down quark, strange quark, charm quark, truth quark and beauty quark. (In some quarters, charm and beauty are known as top and bottom ). The binding charges in the particle are called colors. Despite flavor or charm, science has yet to taste a quark or observe one winking or waving.

In biology labs, researchers soberly discuss the “CCAAT-box”--not a lab pet’s furnishing but a region of DNA, the “building block” of life.

A recent issue of Science magazine featured an article on “The Disputed Birth of Buckyballs,” about Buckminsterfullerene, a 60-atom carbon molecule shaped like inventor Fuller’s geodesic dome. Scientific literature also contains references to G-strings (on the ends of chromosomes), flops and gigaflops, mesons, muons and gluons and the “theory of everything.”

But for many scientists, the ultimate challenge is the linking of the four fundamental forces of nature. And how do they describe this lofty endeavor? Try GUT, the Grand Unified Theory.

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Due to an editing error, an item in View May 1 incorrectly identified a type of quark, a sub-atomic particle. The correct types are truth and beauty which are also known as top and bottom.

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