Beyond the Standard Model

Summary

• The unification of physical law is an ongoing theme in physics.
  • Historical unification
    • Newton's theory of universal gravitation unified the…
      • terrestrial gravitation described by Galileo in his laws of falling bodies and projectiles and…
      • celestial gravitation described by Kepler in his three laws of planetary motion.
    • Maxwell's equations of electricity and magnetism (E&M) or electromagnetism unified the theories of…
      • electricity as described by Franklin, Coulomb, et al. with…
      • magnetism as described by Gilbert, Michell, et al. and then subsumed…
      • optics as described by Hooke, Huygens, Newton, Young, et al.
    • In the early 20th century…
      • gravitation was expanded into the theory of general relativity (GR) by Einstein;
      • electromagnetism was expanded into the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED) by Feynman, Schwinger, Tomanaga, and Dyson; and
      • the strong force was described in the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) of Gell-Mann and Zweig; but
      • the weak force was not described by an independent theory of what is sometimes informally called quantum flavordynamics (QFD).
    • The electroweak theory (EWT) of Glashow, Weinberg, and Salaam extended…
      • quantum electrodynamics, which had been described, to include…
      • quantum flavordynamics, which had not yet been described.
    • The standard model of particle physics…
      • is the combination of…
        • electroweak theory (EWT) and
        • quantum chromodynamics (QCD)
      • is not a theory unto itself
  • Conjectural unification
    • By extension, there should probably be a grand unified theory (GUT) that would unite…
      • electroweak theory with…
      • quantum chromodynamics.
    • By extension, there should also be a theory of everything (TOE) that would unite the four fundamental forces of nature…
      • gravity
      • the strong force
      • the weak force
      • electromagnetism
    • Some candidates for a theory of everything include…
      • string theory, M theory, brane world, etc.
      • supersymmetry
• Science is reductionist in nature.
  • Complex entities are built from elementary constituents.
    • Everything is essentially "atomic".
  • The laws describing the behavior of elementary constituents are few in number.
    • All additional "laws" can be derived from these few laws in principle.