“Quark,” according to the online edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, possesses the following three definitions: (1) n. any of a group of sub-atomic particles (orig. three in number) conceived of as having a fractional electric charge and making up in different combinations the hadrons, but not detected in the free state; (2) n. a low-fat soft cheese of German origin; and (3) v. to croak. Perhaps the editors of the OED did not find it necessary to include a fourth definition – (4) a computer program used to lay out newspaper and magazine pages – because they felt that the first three definitions provided an adequate summary of the various behaviors of said program. Before you complain and say that there is no possible way that a computer program can have the distinct properties of a sub-atomic particle and a low-fat soft German cheese at the same time while also making the same noise as a small, green amphibian, let me attempt to convince you that it is not only probable, but a hard scientific fact.

As all those students who have taken the second module of Professor Dan Styer’s course in quantum mechanics (PHYS 052) can attest, quarks possess a property that has caused much consternation among the ranks of our finest physicists. If you separate one member of a pair of quarks from its mate and change the direction of its spin, its sister particle will adjust its spin at precisely the same moment even if they are separated by an enormous amount of space. This would seem to defy the idea that nothing, even sub-atomic messages or Superman, can travel faster than the speed of light. This phenomenon results in the intense scratching of physicists’ heads, causing a second effect known as “Einstein hair.”

Quark the computer program possesses a similar capability to both communicate internally and confound the external mind at the same time. Somehow the program manages to simultaneously shut itself down on every computer when the sports layout editor imports box scores and can communicate the instantaneous message on a Friday morning (usually at about 15 minutes before the paper goes to press) that none of the computers should remember that any of the last three resets of the arts section exist. And yet, due to an inexplicable decision by the creators of the program, Quark is not designed to be used over a server, resulting in the inability of any single computer to effectively communicate with the main server computer where all files are supposedly saved.

Surprisingly enough, Quark may also share qualities with its name-twin, the low-fat soft cheese. For example, when people come and taste the joys of Quark week after week in the un-air-conditioned Burton basement, it is evident that the program’s gastronomic effects become less and less satisfying and more and more likely to induce prolonged periods of retching and cursing. And apparently, as I briefly mentioned in the last “Insider Edition,” Quark can grow a species of mold as yet unknown to man, just like the kind I would imagine sprouts from old low-fat soft German cheese. Not only does the program contain “Easter eggs” that cause little men to come out and magically disappear photos in a burst of color rivaling a Lucky Charms commercial, but there are also such lovely little features as the command that rapidly rotates any selected box of text, or the sudden appearance of the program developers’ witty nicknames to the accompaniment of psychedelic starbursts in the middle of text boxes. Presumably after a long enough period of time, the German cheese would also begin to evince such low-level life forms and primordial vestiges of emerging, self-contained civilizations.

I suppose that Quark fits the third and final definition of “quark” in two ways. Whenever the program decides that it does not want to perform the action you have specified for it to complete, it makes a noise that could certainly be classified as a croak. But even more interestingly, Quark can also induce croaking, both literal and figurative, in its users. The various noises that emerge from the throats of people frustrated with its antics could only be rivaled by a chorus of frogs at twilight on the banks of an Alabama river in the height of the summer mating season. And our news layout editor often complains of his imminent death as the morning approaches, which could be construed as “croaking” in both senses of the word.

And so, I believe that the editors of the OED are correct to eschew the fourth definition of “quark” from their lexicon as the program does justice to not one, but all three, of their other definitions. Perhaps quantum physicists, cheese producers and frogs alike could learn something about all their fields from our favorite piece of computer programming without which there would be an empty void not only in our lives, but also in every place on campus that you find the Oberlin Review.