A new measurement from an old experiment may have just given us a huge clue to some big unanswered questions in physics.
The Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF), a particle accelerator experiment that operated until 2011, recently caused a stir by remeasuring the mass of a particle known as the 'W boson'.
Each of the four fundamental forces (the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism and gravity) has associated particles that 'carry' the force: for example, the photon - a particle of light - is a carrier of the electromagnetic force. The W boson is one of the carriers of the weak force.
It is unusual for an experiment that stopped taking data more than a decade ago to rouse such interest. The reasons are subtle, but compelling. To see why, let's step back and see where our knowledge of the fundamental forces and constituents of matter expressed in the so-called 'Standard Model' - stands at present.
This story is from the September/October 2022 edition of Very Interesting.
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This story is from the September/October 2022 edition of Very Interesting.
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