Discover
/
Article

Unified theory of elementary‐particle forces

SEP 01, 1980
At sufficiently small distances, perhaps less than 10−29cm, the weak, electromagnetic, and strong interactions appear to be no more than different components of the same fundamental force.
Howard Georgi
Sheldon L. Glashow

The notion of what are the “elementary” or structureless constituents of matter keeps changing as we are able to probe smaller and smaller distances with higher and higher energies. As long as we were limited by the energy available in chemical processes, the elementary particles were atoms; later they were protons, neutrons and electrons; currently we can smash matter into pieces sufficiently fine that quarks and leptons appear to be the elementary consituents of matter.

This article is only available in PDF format

More about the authors

Howard Georgi, Harvard University.

Sheldon L. Glashow, Harvard University.

Related content
/
Article
A half century after the discovery of Hawking radiation, we are still dealing with the quantum puzzle it exposed.
/
Article
Since the discovery was first reported in 1999, researchers have uncovered many aspects of the chiral-induced spin selectivity effect, but its underlying mechanisms remain unclear.
/
Article
Metrologists are using fundamental physics to define units of measure. Now NIST has developed new quantum sensors to measure and realize the pascal.
/
Article
Nanoscale, topologically protected whirlpools of spins have the potential to move from applications in spintronics into quantum science.
This Content Appeared In
pt-cover_1980_09.jpeg

Volume 33, Number 9

Get PT newsletters in your inbox

pt_newsletter_card_blue.png
PT The Week in Physics

A collection of PT's content from the previous week delivered every Monday.

pt_newsletter_card_darkblue.png
PT New Issue Alert

Be notified about the new issue with links to highlights and the full TOC.

pt_newsletter_card_pink.png
PT Webinars & White Papers

The latest webinars, white papers and other informational resources.

By signing up you agree to allow AIP to send you email newsletters. You further agree to our privacy policy and terms of service.