A Beginner's View of Our Electric Universe - New

The four fundamental forces
Having previously mentioned the four fundamental forms of matter, I will now describe the so-called four
fundamental forces that are commonly discussed. These together are said to account for how we perceive
and interact with our reality and how our Earth and space environments appear to us as they do. As I cover the
following information, I would ask you to try to think in both really big and really small terms.
A ‘force’ is any influence that attempts to change the motion or shape of something.
The four fundamental forces that we are told exist are;
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The strong nuclear force
The weak nuclear force
The electromagnetic force
The gravitational force
The strong nuclear force. This binds protons to protons and neutrons to neutrons and protons to neutrons, to
form the central nuclei of atoms. Protons would not normally want to be together because they both have the
same charge (remember, like charges repel). Therefore, the strong nuclear force at that scale is what somehow
overcomes that reluctance to be together and keeps all these particles bound in the form of an atom’s nucleus.
It is also said to be the force that binds the internal structure of protons and neutrons to give these sub-atomic
particles their own form. So, in this incredibly small-scale setting, the strong nuclear force is seen as an
extremely short-range but exceptionally powerful force. It is the force responsible for the energy involved in
atomic explosions!
The weak nuclear force. This, as its name infers, is weaker than the strong nuclear force, but the job it does is
also at the sub-atomic level. The weak force is responsible for a naturally occurring event that takes place when,
for example, a neutron in the nucleus of an atom ‘changes itself’ (decays or reverts) into a single positive proton
and a single negative electron. When this happens, some amount of energy that is no longer required is also
given off as radiation. In other words, the weak nuclear force is responsible for certain elements decaying from
one element into another through either the conversion of neutrons into additional protons inside the nuclei of
their atoms, or the release from atoms of groups of particles consisting of protons and neutrons. An example of
decay would be if you had some uranium and left it for a very, very long time (hundreds of millions of years).
You would eventually find that much of that uranium had turned into lead. In this sense, uranium is known as an
‘unstable element’. This label is applied because certain elements release energy over time as radiation through
this decay process to eventually become a different, and often ‘more stable’ element. Natural decay of elements
is a quite common occurrence and it is generally not a dangerous thing for us humans, but it sometimes can be
- it all depends on the actual element involved and the amount of energy released by its decay process.
70 | Some basic theory that will help