The Weakest Force

I went to a Christian college where there was a requirement that every student earn a minimum # of credits in religious studies.  I completed mine on a semester abroad, meeting with religious leaders in Malta, Greece, Italy, Israel and Tunisia.  That semester was about learning by exploring, engaging, interviewing and experiencing, and then writing about the region and culture of the places we visited.  These were the sites where Judaism, Christianity and Islam had their roots.  Our fearless leader was a scientist.  She kept our conversations going, but didn’t share her own opinion until the very end.  That day she declared: “God is Gravity.”  

 Minds. Blown.

God. Force. Photons. Quarks. All. That. Is.

The videos I watched this week refer to “the four fundamental forces in physics.”  From strongest to weakest, they are Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear, Electromagnetic and Gravitational.  Together they are responsible for holding everything in our universe "in the soup", together in space-time.  The strongest forces are acting on the atomic and subatomic levels, and so are the least apparent in our day to day, but these are also the forces whose messengers or “force carrier” particles have actually been discovered.  The force career for gravitational foce, the graviton, remains undiscovered.  This fits with my personal take on God - a force that hasn’t been proven yet.  My professor may also have added "the presence of which is undeniable,” as gravity appears to be.        

Gravity is the weakest but the most tangible to us. It holds everything down. As a weak force, gravity acts on objects of mass. The more mass an object has, the more gravity has an effect. But it also has power over tiny things like photons of light. How is that? Because it's so weak? 

 A bit stronger on the scale is electromagnetic force - also acting through photons.  This is the only other visible one.  It’s effect is evident in the action of magnets - opposite forces attract and stick, but like forces repel. 

 As opposites attract, electromagnetic force also holds atoms in configuration. But it requires the heft of Strong Nuclear Force to hold the like particles of an atom’s nucleus tight. 

 Strong Nuclear force is the strongest of all the forces, but it didn’t account for subatomic decay. The physicists dug more and discovered weak nuclear force, which allows those tightly bound particles to exchange or escape.  

How else would I compare them? I’m barely grasping the concepts as it is. E=MC2 is the same. It’s the most well known equation I can think of. The equation for a t-shirt, a symbol of concepts I barely grasp, or the sign that this movie might be more thoughtful than the rest. It's such a strong symbol it has a godliness of its own.         

I think its amazing that the weakest force is the most obvious in our lives.  



In my struggle to grasp the forces, I spent a lot of time with the SciShow this week. Warning - he talks very, very fast.   

Strong Interaction - The Four Fundamental Forces of Physics #1a: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv3EMq2Dgq8

Strong Interaction - The Four Fundamental Forces of Physics #1b: https://youtu.be/BNDOSMqGLlg

Weak Interaction - The Four Fundamental Forces of Physics #2:  https://youtu.be/cnL_nwmCLpY

Gravitation - The Four Fundamental Forces of Physics #3: The Four Fundamental Forces https://youtu.be/yhG_ArxmwRM  

Electromagnetism - Electrostatic Force: The Four Fundamental Forces of Physics #4a

 https://youtu.be/GMnsZuEE_m8
Electromagnetism - Electrostatic Force: The Four Fundamental Forces of Physics #4b https://youtu.be/cy6kba3A8vY

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