• Question: What in your opinion is the weirdest/coolest force of nature?

    Asked by {^-^._.-.-}ALsHmeXi{-.-._.^-^}TGS to Steven on 15 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by ChrismdTGS.
    • Photo: Steven Thomson

      Steven Thomson answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      There are four so-called ‘fundamental forces’ in nature – gravity, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. They’re all weird in their own ways, but my favourite is the electromagnetic (EM) force.

      The EM force is responsible most everyday things: light is an eletromagnetic wave: metals are governed by it as are magnets, superconductors, glass, wood, rubber, plastic and more liquids. Not only that, but most quantum mechanical behaviour has its origin in the EM force too: superfluids that can crawl up the sides of glasses or tunnel straight through solid containers, superconductors that levitate above magnets, and all the other weird interactions between quantum particles. For these reasons, I think the EM force is definitely the weirdest and the coolest, as well as being the one we see all the different effects of most often in everyday life.

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