the.com/gluon
The cosmic glue holding quarks together, working harder the more you pull away.
means A massless particle that carries the strong force, binding quarks into protons, neutrons, and everything solid you've ever touched.
from Coined in the 1960s from glue plus the suffix -on, the physicist's go-to ending for tiny particles, because they literally glue matter together.
Color chargeThey carry it, unlike the photon's neutral aloofness.
Self-attractingGluons pull on each other, unlike other force carriers.
Eight flavorsThere are exactly eight distinct gluon types.
Never alonePull quarks apart and the force only grows.