Fundamental Forces in nature
The forces which we see in our day to day life like muscular, friction, forces due to compression and elongation of springs and strings, fluid and gas pressure, electric, magnetic, interatomic and intermolecular forces are derived forces as their originations are due to a few fundamental forces in nature.
A few fundamental forces are:
- Gravitational Force: It is the force of mutual attraction between any two objects by virtue of their masses. It is a universal force as every object experiences this force due to every other object in the universe.
- Electromagnetic Force: It is the force between charged particles. Charges at rest have electric attraction (between unlike charges) and repulsion (between like charges). Charges in motion produce magnetic force. Together they are called Electromagnetic Force.
- Strong Nuclear Force: It is the attractive force between protons and neutrons in a nucleus.It is charge-independent and acts equally between a proton and a proton, a neutron and a neutron, and a proton and a neutron. Recent discoveries show that protons and neutrons are built of elementary particles, quarks.
Below table shows difference between the above forces.
Name |
Relative Strength |
Range |
Operates among |
Gravitational force |
10–39 |
Infinite |
All objects in the universe |
Weak nuclear force |
10–13 |
Very short, Sub-nuclearsize (-10-16m) |
Some elementary particles, particularly electron and neutrino |
Electromagnetic force |
10–2 |
Infinite |
Charged particles |
Strong nuclear force |
1 |
Short, nuclear size (-10-15m) |
Nucleons, heavier elementary particles |
Unification of Forces: There have been physicists who have tried to combine a few of the above fundamental forces. These are listed in table below.
Name of Physicist |
Year |
Achievement in Unification |
Isaac Newton |
1687 |
Unified celestial and terrestrial mechanics. |
Hans Christian Oersted and Michael Faraday |
1820 and 1830 respectively |
Unified electric and magnetic phenomena to give rise to electromagnetism. |
James Clerk Maxwell |
1873 |
Unified electricity, magnetism and optics to show that light is an electromagnetic wave. |
Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam, Steven Weinberg Carlo Rubia, Simon Vander Meer |
1979
1984 |
Gave the idea of electro-weak force which is a combination of electromagnetic and weak nuclear force.
Verified the theory of elctro-weak force. |