21. The longest lifespan of a meson is about 10-8 seconds. 22. This is all fine and dandy until a virtual meson pops up. 23. This virtual meson is then torn apart before it can pop out. 24. It is likely that the particle was what was later called a meson . 25. But protons and neutrons each contain three quarks; mesons contain only two. 26. Mesons also were supposed to exist for an infinitesimally short blip before disintegrating.27. These include glueballs and hybrid mesons ( mesons bound by excited gluons ). 28. These include glueballs and hybrid mesons ( mesons bound by excited gluons ). 29. Ordinary mesons are made up of a valence quark and a valence antiquark. 30. In quantum hydrodynamic models, mesons mediate the residual strong force between nucleons.
