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Protons and neutrons have S = 0, and through the strong force, can produce a pair of strange particles that have S = –1 and S = +1, so that total strangeness is conserved.

But how did the weak interaction that was, among other things, responsible for the decay of Murray’s “strange particles” actually work?

The very first observation of asymmetry involving strange particles in 1964 allowed theorists to predict the existence of six quarks—at a time when only three were known to exist.

A cosmic engine is hurling strange particles at Earth—and new observations, published today in the journal Science, are complicating the hunt for the culprit.

The scientists then use powerful computers to sift through the data from those collisions, and strange particles sometimes emerge from that research.