The original post: /r/askscience by /u/Pechugo83 on 2024-11-13 15:42:43.

I understand the general make up of baryons. 3 valence quarks, each of a different color, plus a bunch of quark-antiquark pairs and gluons, the sea of quarks. But, just how many sea quarks are there? I’ve been looking around I’ve seen answers ranginf anywhere from a handful to like a googol.

So do we have any approximation at all? How many do physics equations allow for? And if we have no clue, why not?