Thanks Mark This could be a further indication of some kind of cross-identity. Of course, when an electron is emitted from a neutron beta decay - there are those who strongly believe that it arose ab initio -- and was never a part of the 3 quark arrangement.
Thus - it is both an open question and a semantic issue about the meaning attached to the consistent appearance of muons following a proton disintegration. BTW - there is a small minority who affirm that the quark is little more than a fiction, a place-holder. That is, it is a fiction in the sense that it was invented to have properties that do show up in high energy events, but it is has no independent identity of its own. In short, a quark could, at some future point in time, be redefined as a "bound triad of muons", and there is some evidence for that description now (and some against). Statistically, the quark is composed of a triad --- three of something. Even the neutrino, another "invented particle" has been shown to have a real identity, having once served the same purpose, which is as place-holder, in the past. Not the quark. -----Original Message----- From: Mark Jurich ... And here's a ZZ --> 4 Muons CMS [Candidate] Event: https://cds.cern.ch/record/1378103?ln=en http://www.atlas.ch/multimedia/4-muon-event.html Here's a movie of a Proton-Proton Collision Event, eventually resulting in 4 Muons (Actual Event, but the movie is a simulation, of course) seen in the ATLAS Detector. Unfortunately I could not easily find one with CMS. Perhaps someone will and all the future Hate Mail will stop! Mark Jurich
