''3 Quarks Daily'' is an online

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, content aggregator, feed reader, news reader, or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates digital Content (media), content such as online newsp ...

and

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

that curates commentary, essays, and multimedia from selected periodicals, newspapers, journals, and blogs. The focus is on literature, the arts, politics, current affairs, science, philosophy, gossip–and, as stated on their web site–"anything else we deem inherently fascinating." Each day of the week from Tuesday through Sunday features about a dozen items culled from the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

. Each Monday is devoted to an

online magazine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to an online only magazine was the comput ...

which has essays and other previously unpublished content by editors and guest columnists.An Audio Interview with Abbas Raza of ''3 Quarks Daily''
By Adam Kampe, ''National Endowment for the Arts Magazine'' The stated aim of ''3QD'' is to offer "a one-stop intellectual surfing experience by culling good stuff from all over and putting it in one place." ''3 Quarks Daily'' also awards annual prizes, called "quarks," for exceptional writing in the blogosphere, as well as organizing quarterly online symposia on international issues. The blog commands a significant readership and readers follow it in a variety of ways: through an

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

subscription and an RSS feed, as well as through

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

updates via

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

and

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

History

Author, engineer, and philosopher S. Abbas Raza founded ''3 Quarks Daily'' in 2004 to serve as a conduit for content across disciplines for the web-based

intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...

everyman. Unlike similar blogs of the time, such as Arts & Letters Daily and Andrew Sullivan's '' The Daily Dish'', 3QD would explore topics beyond the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

and feature science content as well as commentary on current events. In fact, Abbas Raza says that Arts & Letters Daily, "was one of the main inspirations for my starting ''3 Quarks Daily''." The first post was on Saturday, July 31, 2004, and featured the 1904 Constantine Cavafy poem '' Waiting for the Barbarians''.3QD posting for Saturday, July 31, 2004
/ref> The new aggregator site grew rapidly, reaching a thousand posts within seven months; by 2014 that number had reached thirty-five thousand.Manuel, Thomas (2016).
Why the Web Needs the Little Miracle of 3QuarksDaily
'

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

, October 07, 2016 Since then, ''3 Quarks Daily'' has culled content from hundreds of sources, from blogs such as

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...

Science Daily ''ScienceDaily'' is an American website launched in 1995 that aggregates press releases and publishes lightly edited press releases (a practice called churnalism) about science, similar to Phys.org and EurekAlert!. History The site was f ...

, and

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

, from major publications such as ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'', and ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', to smaller outlets such as ''

Guernica Magazine ''Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics'' is an American digital magazine known for publishing fiction, poetry, essays, reportage, art, and interviews that focus primarily on global perspectives and the intersection between art and politics. ...

'', '' The Awl'', and '' The American Scholar''. The name ''3 Quarks Daily'' comes from the elementary nuclear particles of physics which in turn were named after the word ''quark'' which

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

had used in

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It was published in instalments starting in 1924, under the title "fragments from ''Work in Progress''". The final title was only revealed when the book was publishe ...

. The confluence of references to both science and literature in a single word suited the intent of the blog perfectly and the founders also thought that the name would be short and memorable. They named their top three annual prizes the ''Top Quark'' (1st), the ''Strange Quark'' (2nd), and the ''Charm Quark'' (3rd).

The DAG-3QD Peace And Justice Symposia

Since 2012 ''3 Quarks Daily'' has teamed up with the Amsterdam-based Dialogue Advisory Group (DAG) to present online dialogues on topics of international peace and justice. Occasionally, as in the 2013 symposium on drones, a book is published. As of October 2015 there have been six such symposia as shown below.

The Quark Prizes

In 2009, in the interest of encouraging and rewarding good writing in the blogosphere, 3QD announced that it would be awarding annual cash prizes, in Science, Arts & Literature, Politics, and Philosophy for the three best blog posts in each of these four fields. The selection process is as follows: After several weeks during which nominees are submitted by 3QD readers and editors, the four principal editors of 3QD (Abbas Raza, Robin Varghese, Morgan Meis, and Azra Raza) narrow the list down to six articles in each category. A prominent intellectual such as

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

, or Lewis Lapham is chosen in each of the four areas to select the final winners. The prizes are whimsically named the

Top Quark The top quark, sometimes also referred to as the truth quark, (symbol: t) is the most massive of all observed elementary particles. It derives its mass from its coupling to the Higgs field. This coupling is very close to unity; in the Standard ...

(first prize of $500), the

Strange Quark The strange quark or s quark (from its symbol, s) is the third lightest of all quarks, a type of elementary particle. Strange quarks are found in subatomic particles called hadrons. Examples of hadrons containing strange quarks include kaons (), ...

(second prize of $200), and the

Charm Quark The charm quark, charmed quark, or c quark is an elementary particle found in composite subatomic particles called hadrons such as the J/psi meson and the charmed baryons created in particle accelerator collisions. Several bosons, including th ...

(third prize of $100). Originally the prize amounts were twice as big. Not every prize is awarded every year, and no prizes at all were awarded in 2013. Due to logistical and financial reasons, the Quark Prizes were discontinued after 2015. A complete list of prizes awarded between 2009 and 2015 is shown below.

Reception

The 3 Quarks Daily blog has been praised by prominent authors and scientists including

,''3 Quarks Daily announces awards for science blogging''
ScienceBlogs: May 27, 2009 Christopher Lydon,

Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (March 28, 1942 – April 19, 2024) was an American philosopher and cognitive scientist. His research centered on the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of biology, particularly as those ...

, Andrew Sullivan, Ken Roth, Laura Claridge, John Allen Paulos, and Thomas Manuel.

Guest columnists

The Monday magazine is not completely the creation of the 3QD editors; guest columnists are frequently invited. Prominent guest contributors have included: * Marko Ahtisaari *

Arjun Appadurai Arjun Appadurai FRAI (born 4 February 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist who has been recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland ...

* Stephen T. Asma * Hartosh Singh Bal * Pranab Bardhan * Akeel Bilgrami * Mark Blyth * Maarten Boudry * Paul Braterman * Alexander Cooley * Gerald Dworkin * Jennifer Cody Epstein * Julia Galef * Mohsin Hamid * Shadab Zeest Hashmi * Pervez Hoodbhoy * Allen M. Hornblum * Sue Hubbard * Ahmed Humayun * Tasneem Zehra Husain * Sam Kean * Amitava Kumar * Laila Lalami * Kenan Malik * Suketu Mehta *

Martha Nussbaum Martha Nussbaum (; Craven; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philos ...

* John Allen PaulosJohn Allen Paulos
/ref> * Robert Pinsky *

Steven Poole Steven Poole (born 1972) is a British author, journalist, and video game theorist. He particularly concerns himself with the abuse of language and has written two books on the subject: ''Unspeak'' (2006) and ''Who Touched Base in My Thought Showe ...

* Huw Price * Asad Raza * Bruce Robbins * Andy Schmookler * Andrea Scrima * Bapsi Sidhwa * Justin E. H. Smith * Terese Svoboda * Robert B. Talisse * Bilal Tanweer * Frans De Waal

References

External links

Official website

S. Abbas Raza interviews Richard Dawkins
{{DEFAULTSORT:3 Quarks Daily 2004 establishments in the United States American news websites Internet properties established in 2004 News aggregators