{"id":8558,"date":"2013-09-21T10:30:08","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T14:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/?p=8558"},"modified":"2013-09-21T10:30:08","modified_gmt":"2013-09-21T14:30:08","slug":"the-15-most-interesting-force-carrying-bosons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2013\/09\/21\/the-15-most-interesting-force-carrying-bosons\/","title":{"rendered":"The 15 Most Interesting Force-Carrying Bosons"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s gradually becoming clear to me that this blogging thing is old hat. It’s a Web 4.0 world now, and we’re all just Tmblng through it. So, I need to get with modernity, and start posting the listicles that are the bread and butter of the new social media order. Thus, I give you a web-friendly list of The 15 Most Interesting Force-Carrying Bosons.<\/p>\n

The 15 Most Interesting Force-Carrying Bosons<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) The Photon<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"CGI<\/a>
CGI photon from Physics World (http:\/\/physicsworld.com\/cws\/article\/news\/2012\/aug\/10\/photon-shape-could-be-used-to-encode-quantum-information )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Image source: This Physics World article<\/a><\/i>)<\/p>\n

The photon is the carrier of the electromagnetic force. More importantly, it’s what we use to see with– this blog post is transmitted to you using photons passing through fiber-optic cables, and then displayed on a monitor screen and transmitted to your eyes by yet more photons passing through the intervening air. Unless you’re visually impaired, and having this read to you. Or you’re Cory Doctorow, having this post beamed into your visual cortex through a direct neural interface. But even then, there’s still the fiber-optic thing. So, photons are very cool, no matter what Rhett says<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) The W+<\/sup> Boson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The W+ boson, in a highly sophisticated graphic put together by the crack team at Chateau Steelypips.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The positively charged carrier of the weak nuclear force, the W boson is responsible for nuclear decays that convert quarks into leptons and neutrinos. Predicted in the late 1960’s, their discovery in the mid-1980’s cemented the success of the Standard Model of particle physics.<\/p>\n

3) The Z0<\/sup> Boson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A plush Z boson, from the Particle Zoo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Z boson is the neutral carrier of the weak nuclear force, which was also predicted in the 60’s and detected in the 80’s. It’s responsible for elastic scattering of neutrinos, and does not involve changing particles from one type to another.<\/p>\n

It’s always good to have a commercial link or two in a listicle, so here’s an image from the Particle Zoo’s collection of plush particles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4) The W–<\/sup> Boson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An image of a W- boson put together by the crack graphic design team at Chateau Steelypips.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The negatively charged carrier of the weak nuclear force. Really, pretty much the same thing as the W+<\/sup> boson, only with the opposite charge. This is the point in the listicle where you begin to suspect that we’re short on content and just padding this out because nobody would click through to a listicle that only had four items, one for each of the fundamental forces.<\/p>\n

5) The Graviton<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The cover of Thunderbolts #17, featuring the villain Graviton.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The graviton is, as the name would suggest, the carrier of gravity. It’s neutral, with spin 2, and there is, as yet, no really good theory of quantum gravity, so the properties of gravitons remain somewhat indeterminate.<\/p>\n

The image is from Wikipedia’s page for the comic villain Graviton<\/a>, because it’s important to get some media content into a good listicle.<\/p>\n

6) Ultraviolet Photons<\/strong><\/p>\n