Particle farms

"*Ain't nobody got time for that!*" -Sweet Brown

Tired of mining the quark field and gluon field for ages, trying to get the ridiculous amounts of quarks and gluons required to craft higher particles? Fortunately, the laws of physics allow us to cheat the game and make particle farms: contraptions and machines that generate elementary particles automatically. Since the different particles obey different physical laws, you will need to build different setups for different particles. Fortunately, there is a farm for every elementary particle in Elementary Craft!

This article details all the setups for the different particle farms.

# Matter particles

The quantum fields for matter particles all work in the same way: particles can be excited from the quantum field if some form of energy is added to it. The quantum fields corresponding to matter particles are:

* Upquark field
* Downquark Field
* Electron field
* Neutrino field

In Elementary Craft, you can try placing any of these quantum field blocks above a continuous energy source, such as a torch. Occasionally, the quantum field will spawn a particle and an anti-particle. When you place a hopper next to this setup, you can collect those particles automatically. The setup is shown in the figure on the right. *[Figure needed]*

You might think that these particles are created out of nothing, which would violate common sense (and the conservation of mass and energy). Actually, the energy delivered by the torch is converted into mass through Einstein's famous formula

# E
m

c
2

{\displaystyle E=mc^2}

. If the torch would ever burn up, the quantum field would no longer spawn particles. Fortunately for you, this does not happen in Minecraft: torches seem to posses an infinite amount of energy and can burn forever.

# Photons

Photons are carrier particles, not matter particles; therefore, placing a torch under the photon field will not work.

However, there is another physical effect to abuse. If you place an electron next to a photon field block (with a spacing of one block, as in the figure on the right *[figure needed])*, then the photon field block spontaneously gives photons to the electron. However, the electron also returns those photons to the photon field block. This effect is not limited to electrons: any particle with an electric charge will do this. This means a photon farm can be made with any of the following particles:

* Electron
* Positron
* Proton
* Pion+ and pion- (not recommended because of the decay)

In elementary craft, occasionally a photon item falls out. The player can place a hopper here such that the photons are collected automatically.

Contrary to the matter farm above, in this case the photons actually *are* created out of nothing! This is possible because photons have no mass, and it costs no energy to create them. A physicist would say the *chemical potential* of a photon is zero, to look cool on the schoolyard. On top of that, the photons in Elementary Craft are virtual photons, not real ones, so they actually have not interacted with anything in the real world yet.

# Gluons

For gluons, there is no simple setup that just involves the gluon field. Fortunately, gluons can create more gluons by themselves, which can be exploited in the following setup where a pion is pulled apart.

Build rails in opposite directions. Leave a gap of one block between the rails. Put minecarts on the rails, next to the gap. Now put a pion between the minecarts. The pion consists of two quarks that are held together by gluons. Each quark is attached to one of the minecarts, as in the figure on the right. *[figure needed]*

Let the minecarts drive away from one another. The quarks are pulled apart. *[figure needed]*

Watch a chain of gluons grow between the quarks. By pulling the quarks apart, new gluons were created. At some point, the chain of gluons break. Behind each mining cart dangles a pion. As a reward, you receive the gluons that were created.

When the two minecarts are pulled apart, there is a small chance that your favorite poptart cat will come to your aid.

## Diving deeper into the physics: more gluons

Quarks are hold together very tightly by exchanging gluons, following the principles of the strong force.

Gluons themselves also have a color charge. As a result, the gluons themselves are also able to emit gluons. That is why the strong nuclear force between quarks is so strong.

First make the following realization: When electrically charged particles are pulled apart, the electromagnetic attraction between them (which is transferred by photons) will become weaker. This is intuitive.

But when you pull two quarks apart, the attraction just gets stronger! Because of this, the gluons are often depicted as a spring. The further you stretch a spring, the harder it will be to stretch it even further. The way the gluons hold the quarks together to form protons and neutrons is shown on the right.

In reality, you have to pull ever harder, because more and more gluons are formed between the quarks because the gluons themselves also emit gluons.

If you want to pull the quarks away from each other, you have to exert a humongous amount of energy. The gluons use that against you. The gluons use the energy that you apply, to pop more gluons into existence!

When you pull harder and harder, more and more gluons arise between the gluons.

There are increasingly more gluons that are holding the quarks together. The gluons’ combined forces are huge. At some point, all gluons combined are so strong that you have to apply very much energy. So much energy is required to further separate the quarks that it is energetically more beneficial to make two new quarks. Two quarks pop into existence. Not just tiny gluons but complete quarks! One quark, and one anti-quark. The new quark tends to your initial anti-quark and the new antiquark tends to your initial quark.  From one pion (which was quark and antiquark) you have now made two pions (quark and antiquark).