The discovery of the Higgs boson supposedly placed the final brick in the house of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. However, just how sturdy is that house? Are quarks real? No one has ever seen one. What about leptons? Are they really fundamental particles, even though they decay into a collection of other particles? And the bosons, the force carriers? With W and Z masses greater than most hadrons, how are they, too, considered fundamental? Three Quarks Missed the Mark delves into the world of particle physics and examines the evidence for the components of the Standard Model. It offers alternative models of baryons, mesons and leptons that align with observations of their behavior. The book provides explanations of why and how mesons and baryons decay the way they do. It looks at how particles interact with each other in cloud chamber and bubble chamber events and translates those observations back into structure of hadrons and leptons. Three Quarks Missed the Mark reveals that the quark model of the proton is based on a flawed assumption that set into motion a campaign determined to show that it works, in spite of observations to the contrary. Consequently, quarks are not real particles, just elements of a mnemonic system, of sorts, to manage and understand the hadrons and their interactions. Three Quarks Missed the Mark shows that the electron and its fellow lepton siblings, the muon and tau, are not fundamental particles as declared by the Standard Model, as evidenced by their disintegration into lesser particles. It also reveals a couple of surprises about the neutrino, including a potentially big one regarding the solar neutrino problem. Bottom line: it shows that the 17 particles claimed to be fundamental by the Standard Model are actually complex (when they exist at all) and that there are only two true fundamental particles. Three Quarks Missed the Mark offers a rare challenge to the group-think acceptance that most of the physics world affords the Standard Model. This book is a must-read for those who have not fully bought-in to the validity of the Standard Model; and offers a test of the conviction of die-hard Standard Model believers. Regardless of your position on the Standard Model, Three Quarks Missed the Mark will stimulate thinking that will cause you to see subatomic particles in an insightfully different way. Don't miss this opportunity to discover what appears to truly happen in the subnuclear world of particle physics!