Four Fundamental Forces of the Universe
Four Fundamental Forces of the Universe
If you are
interested in science and want to know what forces govern the universe then you
are in the right place. This blog will explain the fundamental forces
simply and hopefully, it may come in handy to you (if not now, then in the future).
Gravity
Sounds familiar,
right? If you don’t know what gravity is, just give up on your dream of
becoming a scientist (kidding). Don’t forget what I tell you; gravity is the
simplest force. It was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, and it explains why you
cannot get up from bed early in the morning, means it explains why the Earth
attracts objects towards it, not just Earth but any planet or star or even a
galaxy you can think of attracts everything towards it. Even the device you are
holding right now is attracting you. But why don’t you get any closer to it
even though it is attracting you? That’s because its gravity is not enough to make
you move. It may not attract you towards it, but it still has gravity because
it has mass and occupies space. Confused? Alright, here’s a simple explanation: The more mass an object has, the more gravity it exerts. That is why Earth’s gravity is
stronger than the device you’re holding, because of its mass.
Gravity is the reason you are sticked to Earth and don’t fall off, Earth and other planets
revolve around the Sun and don’t get out of the solar system, stars and nebulas
are held together in a galaxy. Now it may sound like a really strong force to
you, but it isn’t. Its range is infinite, yet it is the weakest of the four
fundamental forces of the universe.
Now you might be
thinking why objects have a gravity of their own and how. If you are thinking this,
then you are awesome! Even Einstein (you know who he is) thought so and later
came up with a proper explanation in his Theory of Relativity.
This is what his
Theory of Relativity says, there are 3 dimensions that we already know about,
but there is one more, and that is time. These 4 dimensions together make
space-time which is like a superfluid. So, anything having mass bends space-time
and attracts objects towards it. So, by more mass, it means more bend in
space-time and by more gravity, it means more rapidly things will get attracted
towards it.
Here is one cool
practical example you can do which resembles the working of gravity. You would
need 3 persons for it. First, take a bedsheet, then tell person A and person B
to hold it from corners and stretch it tightly. Then tell person C to put some
weights on the sheet, don’t forget to fold it otherwise it would get torn or
just be ready to get scolded by your mother. Let’s say person C puts an
object of mass 5 kg on the corner of the sheet. Then tell him to keep a heavier
one, like an object with a mass of 10 kg, in the center of the sheet. Then you
would notice that the object with more mass would bend the sheet more than the
object with less mass. And then both the objects will get attracted towards
each other. This is how gravity works. You can also use a trampoline instead.
Weak Force or Weak Nuclear Force
Also known as the
weak interaction force, most of the readers may not be familiar with it as much
as they are with gravity. I found it a bit complicated, but you readers are
lucky that I am explaining it simply to you, unlike other websites. This force
is stronger than gravity. No need to be surprised, even I was surprised when I
first read about it because gravity holds the whole universe together so how
come this strange named force, I have never even heard about is stronger than
gravity. The answer is simple, this force acts only in short distances, am not
talking about 10 or 15 meters or even centimeters, I am talking of a distance
which is about `10^{-20}` meters
i.e., this force acts on a subatomic scale.
This fundamental
force is responsible for particle decay in which an unstable particle (I’ll
explain ahead) changes into another particle. This force is responsible for
life in this universe and this force is `10^{25}` times
stronger than gravity. Not just life but it is also responsible for nuclear
fission which fuels the Sun and other stars.
Let’s suppose
that you have a stable particle like a neutron, observe it and it will remain
the same as it is. But if you have an unstable particle-like Higgs boson, it
will break into its constituents in less than `10^{-21}` second, and those particles will further break into their constituent particles. This
is how weak nuclear force works.
Electromagnetism
This force might
also be a bit familiar to you and to understand this you must understand what
magnetism and electrostatic force are.
Magnetism is a
magnetic force which is a force exerted by magnets and the area in which it
acts is called its magnetic field. Every magnet has a north and south pole.
Unlike poles attract each other and on the other hand, like poles repulse.
Electrostatic force is also known as electric force, and like gravity is an attractive force, it can either be attractive or repulsive. This force is any attraction or repulsion between charged particles.
So, this ‘Electromagnetism’
force is just the unification of magnetism and electricity. Earlier magnetism
and electricity were believed to be two separate forces and then in the early
nineteenth century, a Danish physicist named Hans Christian Oersted discovered
that electric charge can deflect the needles of a magnet. He noticed the
phenomenon and later came up with a finding which tells that flow of electric
charge in a wire can produce a magnetic field. And this was when other scientists,
because of Oersted, found one thing in electricity that was related to magnetic
force, and then the race to unify both the forces into one bigger one was
started. In the period between 1820-1871, scientists were working to unify
these forces and were finally unified by Michael Faraday and James Clerk
Maxwell.
This unification
of both the forces into one single force was a major point in science as it
extended our understanding of the universe and hadn’t this force been
discovered, no development in electrical appliances would have been made. Its range is also infinite like gravity’s but is much stronger than it and weak
nuclear force making it the second strongest force of the universe, it is `10^{36}` times
stronger than gravity, which is `10^{11}` times
stronger than the weak nuclear force.
Strong Nuclear Force
This is a force
which you study in particle and nuclear physics which is complicated. But now
that you have opened my blog, I get the opportunity to explain it to you
readers. If you think that this is just a stronger version of weak nuclear
force (as the name says), you’re wrong. But don’t worry, I’ll explain it to
you in no time.
As you know an
atom has a nucleus, and if you don’t then nucleus is a dense region consisting
of protons and neutrons held together at the center of an atom. There are protons
with a positive charge and neutrons don’t have any charge in them. Now you are
wondering nothing is wrong in here, but what if I remind you that unlike
charges attract each other and like charges repulse. So how are they held
together? Does the nucleus of an atom contradict the fact that like forces repulse
and unlike forces attract each other? The answer is no. And this is where the
strong nuclear force takes place.
Like weak nuclear
force is responsible for particle decay, this force is responsible for holding
particles together. Both are stronger than gravity but at a subatomic scale.
Strong nuclear
force is the force keeping these like-charged particles together. Now to prove
that this force really is the strongest of all forces, the repulsion force between
these like-charged particles is about 90 newtons, this force is not much for
us, but for particles, it is very strong. If there is no strong nuclear force,
these particles would repulse each other at speed of more than 8000 miles per
second. This is how strong this force is and is `10^{38}` times
stronger than gravity.
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