An international group of physicists, including the Juelich Supercomputing Centre in Germany, has developed a mathematical theory of force that holds quarkas together. It is a violent nuclear force -- one of the four basic forces of physics -- and the theory that explains it is called quantum chromodynamics. Determined the mathematical foundations of quantum chromodynamics have been able to calculate the proton and neutron masses.
For forty years they know that these two particles are formed by three quarks. Theoretical physicists have long had a technique to calculate their mass: the reticular calculus technique. However, in order to use this technique, physicists lacked an accurate mathematical model of union between quarks. Now they have developed it and for the first time they have made a reliable calculation of the proton and neutron masses without having to measure experimental parameters of these particles. The same technique is useful to calculate the mass of any particle formed by quarks, that is, to calculate the mass of any hadron.