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I've always wondered why there has to be a discrete number of forces, rather than it being a spectrum describing types of interactions.
by potatoman22 5y ago
I've always wondered why there has to be a discrete number of forces, rather than it being a spectrum describing types of interactions.
- macksd 5y agoThere may not have to be, as far as we know. From the Wikipedia page[1]: Many theoretical physicists believe these fundamental forces to be related and to become unified into a single force at very high energies on a minuscule scale, the Planck scale, but particle accelerators cannot produce the enormous energies required to experimentally probe this. Devising a common theoretical framework that would explain the relation between the forces in a single theory is perhaps the greatest goal of today's theoretical physicists. The weak and electromagnetic forces have already been unified with the electroweak theory of Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg for which they received the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics. Some physicists seek to unite the electroweak and strong fields within what is called a Grand Unified Theory (GUT). An even bigger challenge is to find a way to quantize the gravitational field, resulting in a theory of quantum gravity (QG) which would unite gravity in a common theoretical framework with the other three forces. Some theories, notably string theory, seek both QG and GUT within one framework, unifying all four fundamental interactions along with mass generation within a theory of everything (ToE). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction
- akamoonknight 5y agoAnother related thing I've wondered is if, similar to how the possible electroweak force un-unified into the electromagnetic force and the weak force, is there a scenario where the electromagnetic force (or the weak force) un-unifies into some other sub force ? So I guess like the reverse of the GUT.
- _Microft 5y agoSounds like you mean electrostatics and magnetostatics.
- thayne 5y agoThat isn't quite the same thing. Both electrostatic and magnetostatic interactions are mediated by the same boson (photons). Whereas each of the four fundamental forces have their own set of bosons (W and Z bosons for weak, gluons for strong, and the theorized graviton for gravity).
- Razengan 5y ago> un-unified split
- DonHopkins 5y agoified
- betterunix2 5y agoIt is certainly possible. What we think of as a long timescale for the age of the universe may be very short in some future epoch where the fundamental forces further split, just as we see the epoch of electroweak unification as being short.
- grkvlt 5y agoi thought about this as well, when i first learned about unification of forces, it seems like an obvious thing to try and reason about, so let's go! [caveat - i'm not a physicist, but] we know forces unify at higher temperatures/energies, and there is no limit to how high temperature can get (maybe? i guess temperature is the same as the mean velocity of the particles, so for particles with mass this cannot exceed c, right?) however the the high energy zone is inaccessible with current technology above a certain level. but in the other direction, we hit a floor at zero kelvin. which we can access, and can therefore test. so we know that going right down to zero kelvin / electron-volts / joules / meteres per second does not split any of the known forces further. this is how we know that they are the fundamental forces, i think.
- at_a_remove 5y agoForces are mediated by fields (or particles, depends on your interpretation). If you want 4.5 forces, what does that .5 look like? Essentially, each force does describe a type of interaction. So what does one-third of a type look like?
- klodolph 5y agoWe used to think that electricity and magnetism were different types of interaction, but it turns out that they are more coherently described as a single “electromagnetic” force. The same may be true of other seemingly different forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Unified_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Unified_Theory
- at_a_remove 5y agoThis is a true statement, but it does not disprove anything I said. Before, we thought there were two. Now we know there are one. We do not say "one and a half."
- jakeinspace 5y agoSure, there might be 1 equation for 1 force. But that is a very different thing from a "spectrum" of forces.
- malwarebytess 5y agoMaybe something like fractional dimension in fractals. lol
- cybernautique 5y agohttps://www.quantamagazine.org/fractons-the-weirdest-matter-could-yield-quantum-clues-20210726/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/fractons-the-weirdest-matter-... I'm not conversant enough with physics to do more with this article than say "wow, that's cool!" and let my mind run into all sorts of fun science-fictional speculation... but wow! Fractals are cool, and fractals in _physics_ are _very_ cool!
- 5y ago
- roywiggins 5y agoThe known forces, other than gravity, are mediated by specific particles that have characteristic masses and other properties. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_boson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_boson (there might be a graviton, too) With a Grand Unification Theory, they might turn out to be one force with several aspects (eg electroweak force), but that's not really a continuum.
- maxerickson 5y agoIs "particle" the correct model, or is it just very useful?
- drsnow 5y agoThe latter.
- Y_Y 5y agoWhat do you think a model is? There are phenomena explained by the particle model, and there are phenomena that are not. This is true of all models, and it's a a strong claim that we could eventually land on a "correct" model at all. To be fair, a "particle" as the term is used in quantum field theory doesn't refer to a billiard ball, it's a perturbation in a "field" and encapsulates behaviour which could be described as wave or particle or neither.
- maxerickson 5y agoOh come on, what do you think a leading question is?
- amackera 5y ago"All models are wrong, but some are useful." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong
- 5y ago
- civilized 5y agoI've always wondered why there has to be a discrete number of elements, rather than it being a spectrum describing different types of materials.
- themodelplumber 5y agoI always wondered, why stick with spectra rather than an ever-expanding set of infinite-dimensional workspaces, mental models, and metaphor...?
- civilized 5y agoAnd then I figured, why not just posit an omnipotent Being that just makes it all happen, at each instant, by sheer Will
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lolthishuman 5y agoIt all intuitively seems like different scales of electromagnetic interaction at different densities. In general though, humans tend to put any idea into a box. Physics tries to meet the ideas with reality.
- cjfd 5y agoI think if there is a spectrum in interactions between the two forces joined by this spectrum would be considered one force. Of course, there is a history of forces that once appeared to be distinct turning out not to be distinct but one and the same force instead. There is a line of thinking that speculates that all four known forces are to be joined in one.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoGood question. Consider the interesting fact that there are discrete energy levels instead of a continuum of energies for an electron in an orbital. This was a profound discovery at the time because it does seem like things should be more analogue than digital :)
- potatoman22 5y agoNeat. Can the energy levels described by a probability distribution?
- mensetmanusman 5y agoOnly when you put trillions and trillions close by (a cup of coffee has about a quadrillion atoms with electrons moving between states). This is because the discrete energy levels don’t like to share the exact same energy levels as neighbors (Pauli exclusion principle). For single atoms, the energy levels are exactly defined by the Schrödinger equation:)