Editing Eightfold way (physics) (section)

{{Short description|Classification scheme for hadrons}}
[[Image:meson octet.png|thumb|The [[pseudoscalar meson]] octet. Particles along the same horizontal line share the same [[Strangeness (particle physics)|strangeness]], {{mvar|s}}, while those on the same left-leaning diagonals share the same [[electric charge|charge]], {{mvar|q}} (given as multiples of the [[elementary charge]]).]]
In [[physics]], the '''eightfold way''' is an organizational scheme for a class of subatomic particles known as [[hadron]]s that led to the development of the [[quark model]]. Both the American physicist [[Murray Gell-Mann]] and the Israeli physicist [[Yuval Ne'eman]] independently and simultaneously proposed the idea in 1961.<ref name=Gell-Mann-1961-TID-12608/><ref name=Ne-eman-1961-08/>{{efn|
In Gell-Mann's 1961 paper, Reference&nbsp;6 says
{{blockquote|After the circulation of the preliminary version of this work (January&nbsp;1961) the author has learned of a similar theory put forward independently and simultaneously by [[Yuval Ne'eman|Y.&nbsp;Ne'eman]] ([[Nuclear Physics (journal)|Nuclear Physics]], to be published). Earlier uses of the 3&nbsp;dimensional unitary group in connection with the [[Sakata model]] are reported by Y.&nbsp;Ohnuki at the 1960 Rochester Conference on High Energy Physics. [[Abdus Salam|A.&nbsp;Salam]] and J.&nbsp;Ward ([[Nuovo Cimento]], to be published) have considered related questions. The author would like to thank Dr.&nbsp;Ne'eman and Professor Salam for communicating their results to him.}}
while the very end of Ne'eman's (1961) paper reads,
{{blockquote|I am indebted to Prof. A.&nbsp;Salam for discussions on this problem. In fact, when I presented this paper to him, he showed me a study he had done on the unitary theory of the Sakata model, treated as a gauge, and thus producing a similar set of vector bosons. Shortly after the present paper was written, a further version, utilizing the 8&nbsp;representation for baryons, as in this paper, reached us in a [[preprint]] by Prof. [[Murray Gell-Mann|M. Gell Mann]].}}
}}
The name comes from Gell-Mann's (1961) paper and is an allusion to the [[Noble Eightfold Path]] of [[Buddhism]].<ref name=Young-Freedman-2004-Sears-Zemansky/>