Quarks are never alone today, but in the first second of the universe, 'free' quarks are believed to have been present. Powerful particle accelerators can also produce individual quarks, by blasting them out of a nucleus. But almost immediately — within much less than a billionth of a nanosecond — quarks and gluons erupt out of empty space. The "free" quark, its force field growing, joins with the newly created quarks — and brand-new matter is formed.

It will take sophisticated experiments, measuring the penetration of particles through nuclei, to reveal how speeding quarks turn into ordinary matter. To conduct these experiments, we need the energy of the Jefferson Lab upgrade.