According to the Standard Model, matter is built by two types of particles, leptons and hadrons. One type (hadrons), where the proton belongs, are particles built by quarks, while the other kind (leptons), where the electron belongs, seems to be elementary, pointlike particles. Quarks are the new, fundamental level inside matter. As far as we know, they are, as are leptons, elementary. Quarks and leptons (and their antiparticles) are the most basic constituents of matter.

Quarks come in three different kinds or states -- in three colours (and their anticolours) red, blue and green. Colour is, of course, no real colour, but a quantum state of the quark. It turns out that all composite particles are combined of constituents with different colour, so that the total colour vanishes.

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