Charm - a quarks point of view

I’m always finding myself looking up random information on the internet whenever a question pops into my head and then instantly forgetting the new fact I just learnt – I’m too much of a student, unless it has been written out in five different ways using a multitude of different highlights I can’t remember anything.

So, I though this would be a good way of collating any and all useless information that I happen to look up in the day – and it will also be an interesting record of my incredibly random thought process.

Thought one:

Back in the day I was a scientist cum engineer as well as childhood fascination with astronomy. This has led into a continue ‘grown up’ fascination with science and astronomy and a desire to at least be able to have a longer than five minute conversation about string theory. Therefore, random thought one for the day is:

Quarks

Can I remember all six names, known as ‘flavours’?

1) Up
2) Down
3) Charm
4) Strange
5) ..left?
6) ….right?

Ok, obviously need to work on number 5 and 6. Also, why the heck do we have the names charm and strange in the normal dull world of science. Hummmm, must investigate.

Ah-ha number 5 and 6 are bottom and top.

Random facts about Quarks:

The most elusive quark, the top quark, was discovered in 1995 after its existence had been theorized for 20 years.
charm, strange, top, and bottom varieties are highly unstable, and are believed to have decayed within a fraction of a second after the Big Bang
Each of the six "flavours" of quarks can have three different "colours"; red, green and blue. Alas, this does not indicate an actual colour but is used to describe the color charge as a property of quarks and gluons which are related to their strong interactions in the context of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). And if you want to know that that all means, look it up yourself.
Orginally an attempt was made ‘flavours’ 5 and six, "beauty" and the predicted sixth quark "truth"; however, this later gave way to the names bottom and top.