1981•American Journal of PhysicsRequires access

Rubik’s cube and a model of quark confinement

Solomon W. Golomb

Abstract

Designating a +1200 rotation (’’twist’’) of a corner cell of Rubik’s cube TM (a popular geometric puzzle) as a (mathematical) quark, and a −1200 rotation of a corner cell as a (mathematical) antiquark, the same restrictions that confine physical quarks are observed to hold, viz. isolated quarks cannot arise, and in general, combinations of quarks and antiquarks can only occur if the excess of one type over the other is a multiple of three.

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Key concepts: Physics, Quark, Twist, Cube (algebra), Color confinement, Rotation (mathematics), Particle physics, Quark model