Small and beautiful – the colourful world of quarks

Abstract

Since the first atomistic ideas of Democrit we have gone a long way and have transcended the mechanistic view often associated with atomism. Knowing the building blocks of a system alone is not really sufficient to fully understand it. A system is often more than its parts. In particular, quantum mechanics has taught us to be careful to regard objects as “isolated”, and quantum mechanics is indeed of utmost importance in understanding atomic and subatomic systems.