The Standard Model of particle physics is an experimentally accurate but incomplete theory of the fundamental interactions, limited by undetermined free parameters (such as neutrino mass), the exclusion of gravity, and the absence of any account of dark matter and dark energy. The weak force, mediated by the massive W+, W−, and Z0 bosons, governs radioactive beta decay and was first described through Fermi's four-fermion interaction before being unified with electromagnetism in the Weinberg-Salam electroweak theory; the strong force, mediated by massless gluons, confines quarks into hadrons such as protons and neutrons and binds nucleons into atomic nuclei. Both forces belong to the domain of particle physics and quantum field theory, sitting alongside gravity and electromagnetism as the four fundamental interactions, each mathematically described as a field.
The Standard Model of particle physics is an experimentally accurate but incomplete theory of the fundamental interactions, limited by undetermined free parameters (such as neutrino mass), the exclus…