Answer 1:
The electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces
unify with each-other before with the strong, but
the strong force unifies with the "electroweak" at
higher energies. The way in which this happens is
that the particles that mediate the forces
approach each-other in energy and in strength at a
certain level of energy and temperature. The
electromagnetic force is mediated by photons, the
strong by gluons, and the weak by W and Z
particles (massive as W and Z may be). At energies
of 80-90 billion electron volts, the photons, W
and Z particles have essentially the same energy
and become indistinguishable, performing all
functions, indicating that the two forces have
merged. The X-boson, which is thought to come in
at around 1015 electron volts but which
has never been observed, would allow leptons
(electrons and neutrinos) to transform into quarks
and vice-versa, thereby unifying the strong and
electroweak forces. So far, however, we don't have
any particle accelerators that can generate even
1012 electron volts, so finding the
X-boson and verifying that it indeed exists is
well beyond our current capacity. And then
there is gravity. So far we have no good theory of
quantum gravitation, or an understanding of how
the still-theoretical gravitons would mesh with
the X-boson. It's a big mystery. |
Answer 2:
The electromagnetic force and the weak force
have been unified by theoretical physicists into
something called the electroweak force. This
theory is called QED, or Quantum Electrodynamics.
Looking at the properties of the electromagnetic
and weak forces, physicists were able to figure
out that at very high energies, the two forces
would have identical properties. This doesn't have
much bearing on our day-to-day lives - the
energies of all the stuff around us is low enough
that these two forces look different. However, it
does give theoretical physicists some insight into
the way the universe works, and particle
accelerator experiments have verified these
results. To understand this a bit better, we
could relate it to the unification of electricity
and magnetism. When these two forces were
discovered, it was thought that they were two
totally distinct forces. However, James Clerk
Maxwell figured out that electricity and magnetism
interact with each other in a very interesting
way, and that they're not as different as they
seem. This gave way to all sorts of great
inventions that we use today, like the
electromagnetic motor. Albert Einstein later
developed his Theory of Special Relativity, and
this showed that electricity and magnetism are the
same force, just manifested in a slightly
different way. However, since we interact with
things that move very slowly, they look like two
different forces. The strong force hasn't
quite been included into the electroweak force
yet. It's hoped that at even higher energies the
strong force would look the same as the
electroweak force. Physicists call this hopeful
theory Grand Unification Theory. Beyond that, it's
hoped that some day physicists could unify gravity
(the forth and last of the fundamental forces)
with all the other forces, thus discovering a
Theory of Everying, and hence having a theory that
understands the universe at a fundamental level.
This has proven to be VERY difficult, but some
physicists hope that String Theory could provide
the answer. There is an equation for the
electroweak forces. Unfortunately, at this level
of physics, theorists use a different notation
other than the usual "F=ma" we see in basic
physics. This would take a lot to explain, but if
you'd like to see some of what these equations
look like out of curiosity, you can check out this
wikipedia article: electroweak_f I
didn't try to re-create the equation here, since
it's very long. Don't worry about understanding
what it means at this point - it's quite complex. Click Here to return to the search form.
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