ALEPH detector
The question of mass has been especially puzzling, and has left the Higgs boson as the single missing piece of the Standard Model. The Standard Model has three of four of nature's forces: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Electromagnetism has been fairly well understood for many decades. Recently, physicists have learned much more about the strong force, which binds the elements of atomic nuclei together, and the weak force, which governs radioactivity and hydrogen fusion.
Electromagnetism describes how particles interact with photons, tiny packets of electromagnetic radiation. In a similar way, the weak force describes how two other entities, the W and Z particles, interact with electrons, quarks, neutrinos and others. There is one very important difference between these two interactions: photons have no mass, while the masses of W and Z are huge. In fact, they are some of the most massive particles known.
The first inclination is to assume that W and Z simply exist and interact with other elemental particles. But for mathematical reasons, the giant masses of W and Z raise inconsistencies in the Standard Model. the Higgs boson.
ALEPH detector
The question of mass has been especially puzzling, and has left the Higgs boson as the single missing piece of the Standard Model. The Standard Model has three of four of nature's forces: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Electromagnetism has been fairly well understood for many decades. Recently, physicists have learned much more about the strong force, which binds the elements of atomic nuclei together, and the weak force, which governs radioactivity and hydrogen fusion.
Electromagnetism describes how particles interact with photons, tiny packets of electromagnetic radiation. In a similar way, the weak force describes how two other entities, the W and Z particles, interact with electrons, quarks, neutrinos and others. There is one very important difference between these two interactions: photons have no mass, while the masses of W and Z are huge. In fact, they are some of the most massive particles known.
The first inclination is to assume that W and Z simply exist and interact with other elemental particles. But for mathematical reasons, the giant masses of W and Z raise inconsistencies in the Standard Model. the Higgs boson.