end in the universe we know—or have we just not discovered complex
cookies?
Heisenberg said something about the role of mathematics that seems
appropriate to quote at this juncture, even though we aren’t talking about
quantum mechanics: “... it has been possible to invent a mathematical
scheme—the quantum theory—which seems entirely adequate for the
treatment of atomic processes; for visualisation, however, we must con-
tent ourselves with two incomplete analogies—the wave picture and the
corpuscular picture.”^2 In other words, complex cookies may not be a part
of what we can visualize with the accuracy that we can depict them math-
ematically—but if it works, that’s all we need to worry about.
The Standard Model
The Standard Model represents the way physicists currently view the uni-
verse. There are two types of particles: the fermions, which are the parti-
cles of matter, and the bosons, which are the particles that transmit the
four forces currently thought to act in the universe. These forces are elec-
tromagnetism, which is transmitted by photons; the weak nuclear force,
which is responsible for radioactive decay and is transmitted by W and Z
bosons; the strong nuclear force, which holds the nuclei together (coun-
teracting the repulsive electric force generated by the protons in the nu-
cleus) and is transmitted by gluons; and the gravitational force, for which
the transmitting particle has yet to be found.
The Standard Model is the culmination of centuries of effort, but even if
it is shown to be accurate in every detail (and in some instances it has
been experimentally confirmed to more than fifteen decimal places),
physicists know that it leaves many questions unanswered. The masses of
the particles are numbers that are measured experimentally; is there a
deeper theory that can predict those masses? The fermions divide nicely
into three separate “generations” of particles; why three, and not two,
four, or some other number? The four forces vary greatly in many re-
spects. Electromagnetism is almost forty orders of magnitude stronger
than gravity, which is why you can run a comb through your hair (assum-
ing you have some; I don’t) on a cold winter day and generate enough static
electricity to overcome the gravitational attraction of Earth and pick up a
small Post-it. Electromagnetism and gravity have infinite range—the
strong force is confined to the interior of the atom. Electromagnetism
is both attractive and repulsive, which fortunately is gathered in equal
amounts in every un-ionized atom (so we are not walking bundles of elec-
tric charge, except on cold winter days), but gravity is always attractive.
Space and Time: Is That All There Is? 137