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From what I can glean by looking around Google, nobody is sure of the answer to my first question, but....

Isn't it strange that the up quark is lighter than the down, while the charm and top quarks (also positive) are heavier than the strange and bottom quarks?

Kurt Hikes
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    Strange, but fortunate. If it were the other way around, free protons would decay to stable neutrons, the universe would be a very boring place, and we wouldn't be here to discuss it. ;) – PM 2Ring Jun 22 '19 at 23:24
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    The increase of mass between generations on a logarithmic scale is practically linear within a margin of error. The mass of positive quarks increases faster than the mass of negative quarks. Thus there is nothing strange that the negative quark is heavier in the first generation, but lighter in the other generations. We may not know why this trend exists, but it answers your question. – safesphere Jun 23 '19 at 02:33
  • @safesphere, can you please provide any references to the said logarithmically linear behavior and its possible explanations? – MadMax Jun 25 '19 at 18:39
  • @MadMax There is no link or explanation. It is just my observation. It shows that the mass of positive quarks increases faster than the mass of negative quarks. This trend explains the reverse relation in your question, but I am not sure what the reason for this trend may be. To see it just plot a chart with 1, 2, 3 as the generation number along the horizontal axis and the logarithm of the quark mass along the vertical axis. Then connect the points for the positive quarks as one trend and connect the points for the negative quarks as the other trebd. Easy to do in Excel or any chart software. – safesphere Jun 26 '19 at 17:04
  • @safesphere, how about leptons? – MadMax Jun 26 '19 at 17:31
  • @MadMax The trend is similar for leptons. It is close to, but not exactly linear on the logarithmic scale. This means that the mass increases with generation approximately (but not exactly) exponentially. There are two different trends for differently charged quarks, but the trends for charged and uncharged leptons seem very similar, just of different magnitudes. – safesphere Jun 26 '19 at 22:06
  • @safesphere, thank you for sharing the interesting observation! – MadMax Jun 27 '19 at 13:40

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