Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren boge obam here. The four fundamental forces are
Speaker 1: the most important quartet in science. So far, has anyone's
Speaker 1: been able to prove the universe is governed by these
Speaker 1: forces gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force.
Speaker 1: But maybe this forsome isn't alone. In a Hungarian team
Speaker 1: led by physicist Attila krasno Horci reportedly discovered new evidence
Speaker 1: for a fifth fundamental force, something previously unknown to science.
Speaker 1: The group uploaded another paper about the subject to archive
Speaker 1: a research database in October. While many scientists are skeptical
Speaker 1: about these findings, the research does give us an occasion
Speaker 1: to talk about the major forces that we all take
Speaker 1: for granted. The fab four fundamental forces are irreducible, meaning
Speaker 1: they can't be broken down into other, more basic forces.
Speaker 1: These are the core phenomena behind every other known type
Speaker 1: of physical interaction. For example, friction, tension, and elasticity are
Speaker 1: all derived from electromagnetism. And what's that you ask? Electromagnetism
Speaker 1: is a force that affects all positively and negatively charged particles.
Speaker 1: Those with opposite charges attract, while one's carrying like charges
Speaker 1: repel each other. Not only does this principle keep magnets
Speaker 1: on your fridge, but it's also the reason why solid
Speaker 1: objects are able to retain their shapes compared with electromagnetism.
Speaker 1: Gravity is rather weak. Surprisingly enough, it's actually the weakest
Speaker 1: of the four fundamentals, including the so called weak force.
Speaker 1: Will get to that one in a bit. Gravity is
Speaker 1: the attraction of any two objects in the universe to
Speaker 1: one another. Moons, dustmotes, coyotes, whatever. Everything exerts gravity on
Speaker 1: every other thing, but at least one of the things
Speaker 1: in question has to be pretty massive in order for
Speaker 1: it to make much of a difference. That's why we
Speaker 1: don't have dust motes orbiting our heads like asteroids, and
Speaker 1: why we don't fall into orbit of coyotes when we
Speaker 1: encounter them. But let's turn to the appropriately named strong force.
Speaker 1: This is what holds atomic nucleus is together even in
Speaker 1: spite of their charged protons which are constantly trying to escape.
Speaker 1: And last, but not least, there's the weak force a
Speaker 1: k a. The weak interaction. This one is the hardest
Speaker 1: to explain, and honestly I'm not an expert here, but
Speaker 1: it's the force by which sub atomic particles can transform
Speaker 1: by decaying into different particles by losing a boson, which
Speaker 1: disintegrates into positrons and or neutrinos. This weak force fuels
Speaker 1: certain kinds of radioactive decay, which means it's responsible for
Speaker 1: everything from medical imaging to the radiometric dating that researchers
Speaker 1: used to determine the ages of fossils and artifacts, to
Speaker 1: the nuclear fission that occurs in the sun. So kind
Speaker 1: of a big deal. Scientists have a theory that nicely
Speaker 1: describes three of those forces, known as the Standard Model
Speaker 1: of Physics. It's made up of various measurements in mathematical formulas.
Speaker 1: It also breaks down elementary particles into categories and subcategories.
Speaker 1: We spoke via email with m I T. Physicist Richard Milner.
Speaker 1: He explained the Standard Model of Physics is the present
Speaker 1: framework for describing the sub atomic world at all energies.
Speaker 1: It was developed post World War two, and I count
Speaker 1: at least eighteen Nobel Prizes in physics since nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: have been awarded for contributions to its development. Like all
Speaker 1: good theories, the Standard Model has accurately predicted numerous scientific breakthroughs,
Speaker 1: including the discovery of the elusive Higgs Boson particle back
Speaker 1: in Yet it doesn't answer every question. The standard model
Speaker 1: offers no explanation for gravity, and it hasn't brought scientists
Speaker 1: any closer to understanding dark matter, a mysterious ingredient that
Speaker 1: makes up about of our universe. Here's where Krasna, hor
Speaker 1: Kei and company come in. During sperariment at the Hungarian
Speaker 1: Academy of Sciences Institute for Nuclear Research, they watched excited
Speaker 1: brilliant eight atoms decay inside a particle accelerator. Normally, this
Speaker 1: process releases light, which is later converted into electrons and positrons,
Speaker 1: which are a type of sub atomic particle with a
Speaker 1: positive charge. And sure enough, that's what happened. But then
Speaker 1: things got interesting. Normally, brilliant eight decays in a predictable fashion,
Speaker 1: yet a weirdly high number of these electrons and positrons
Speaker 1: repelled each other at a one and forty degree angle.
Speaker 1: To explain the surplus cresta Horkis team argued that a
Speaker 1: never before seen particle had been formed as the atoms decayed.
Speaker 1: By their calculations, this theoretical sub atomic body would have
Speaker 1: a massive around seventeen million electron volts. They went ahead
Speaker 1: and named it the X seventeen particle, and now X
Speaker 1: seventeen is once again making the news. Recently, the same
Speaker 1: Hungarian scientists detected an anomaly in decay examples of helium four.
Speaker 1: According to their archive paper, an unforeseen surplus of positrons
Speaker 1: and electrons were released, possibly because another X seventeen particle
Speaker 1: was created. If this mystery particle exists, it might be
Speaker 1: something very special. Maybe, just maybe it's a newfound carrier boson.
Speaker 1: Bosons are spinning particles that probably lack internal structure. They're
Speaker 1: known to carry forces, making them an integral part of
Speaker 1: the Standard model. Under the Standard model, Milner explains forces
Speaker 1: take place by exchange of the carrier bosons between other
Speaker 1: sub atomic particles. It's said each of the four fundamental
Speaker 1: forces has its own corresponding boson. The one that transports
Speaker 1: gravity hasn't been found yet, but the carrier bosons associated
Speaker 1: with strong force, weak force, and electromagnetism are well documented.
Speaker 1: Presumably X seventeen would be the carrier boson for a
Speaker 1: fifth fundamental force that we never do existed, and perhaps
Speaker 1: said force is how related to dark matter. But we're
Speaker 1: getting ahead of ourselves. You see, there's no hard proof
Speaker 1: that X seventeen exists in the first place. The European
Speaker 1: Organization for Nuclear Research better known as CERN, has yet
Speaker 1: to find any trace of the particle, and the new
Speaker 1: archive paper is still awaiting peer review and replication from
Speaker 1: other scientists. Milner and his colleagues have devised a proposal
Speaker 1: to try to generate X seventeen particles in a scattering
Speaker 1: experiment at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia.
Speaker 1: At present, the standard model doesn't account for any new
Speaker 1: fundamental forces, so if the X seventeen and the fifth
Speaker 1: force that it allegedly carries, our real will have to
Speaker 1: modify the good old standard model. At any rate, it's
Speaker 1: clear that the sub atomic world is still rife with secrets.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Mark Mancini and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radios.
Speaker 1: Has Stuff Works. For more in this lots of other
Speaker 1: curious topics, visit our home planet how Stuff Works dot com,
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