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DiracPool
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Or, more generally, can we destroy a nucleon? I know we can convert between a proton and a neutron, but what about obliteration? If we try to separate a quark from a nucleon we cannot do so because we bud off an anti-quark and the original quark goes back in (or something like that). So we can't measure any free quarks. Does this mean that we can't bust open a nucleon? If we can, then what happens, the nucleon just become a bunch of neutrinos, lepton's, and photons? Are we removing protons from the universe's pool at the LHC?