QUAGMA

noun (Science and Technology) In physics, a hypothetical state or body of matter consisting of free quarks and gluons. Etymology: Formed by combining the first three letters of quark, the initial letter of gluon, and the last two of plasma to make an artificial word designed to rhyme with magma. History and Usage: One of the most important areas of development in particle physics in the past two decades arises from M. Gell-Man's theory of sub-atomic particles called quarks (after a line in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, 'Three quarks for Muster Mark!', but pronounced to the theory as it developed in the seventies, are bound together by the colour force carried by massless gluons (so named because they act as a kind of sub-atomic glue). The idea that under certain conditions the quarks and gluons would become mixed into a kind of plasma, called a quagma, was postulated in the mid eighties. Theory suggests that when the density of energy in nuclear matter is high enough, the quarks and gluons will no longer remain confined but will form a quagma. New Scientist 3 Mar. 1988, p. 45