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Baryons are one of the two subgroups of hadrons, which are particles that experience the strong force. The two best-known baryons are the nucleons, the proton and the neutron, which compose the bulk of all matter in the universe. Baryons are not fundamental but are composed of other particles.

The existence of positively charged nuclear states was experimentally confirmed by physicists working between 1910 and 1920. They found that atomic nuclei contained several positive charges, which seemed to indicate that the centers of atoms should fly apart as a result of electromagnetic coulomb repulsion. The unexplained failure of atomic nuclei to explode became a foremost concern of theoretical physicists.

Mesons are a class of elementary particles of integral spin (bosons) that succumb to the strong nuclear reaction. Over two hundred distinct mesons have been detected experimentally, from the lightest, pions, to the very heavy upsilon mesons, which are about one hundred times heavier than pions.