| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis we want to understand an organization scheme for subatomic particles proposed in 1961 by the physicist Murray Gell-Mann, called the Eightfold Way. We do this mainly from a mathematical point of view. We combine representation theory and the theory of quarks to obtain an insight in the Eightfold Way. More specifically, the irreducible representations of the symmetry group of the quarks, the Lie group SU(3), will help us to classify the light hadrons into multiples. Since the irreducible representations of SU(3) play such an important role, the first part of this thesis is devoted to classifying those representations. The second part will involve the classification of the light hadrons. | |
