The title is The Force of Fundamental Interactions
and as Pepe has just said, maybe it should have been The "Forces" of
Fundamental Interactions. The reason why I chose "The Force" is because I want to believe
that maybe what we now call fundamental interactions, and there are
several of them, can actually converge towards one same force.
This is just expeculation so far but I am going to try and explain
the condition knowledge is in regarding this expeculation.
The second thing that I want to clarify is what we consider as "fundamental".
This is a word of considerable importance, so we should know its meaning.
We use the word "fundamental" in this field to talk and refer to
basic laws of the workings of the universe;
we are talking about the deep nature of what governs the
interaction among matter. "Fundamental" in the sense that we are going to see
the fundamental elements of matter, that is to say, those elemental particles
that govern matter. "Elemental" in the sense that they do not have internal components,
which are the most essential elements, base to be used and from which
the rest is constituted. The interacting forces are also "Fundamental",
they make these particles interact,
they are the basic forces of Nature.
The Fundamental interactions that I am going to explain are the ones that have been
experimentally studied: gravity, electromagnetism...which are
interactions covering long distances, and that's why they are the ones we
find in our daily lives; and also interactions that cover quite short distances,
for instance in the inside of the nucleous, distances that are smaller than
the common nuclear distance: weak and strong nuclear interactions.
I am going to tell you about the history of the evolution
of knowledge concerning these three interactions, so first
I want to show you the actors that will play a role in this meeting, which
practically covers the history of the 20th century,
from its beginning until nowadays. This lecture intends to clarify some elements
in order to help you understand what Franco Elche is drawing in this blackboard.
Excerpt from the conference held
November 12th, 2015, at the Residencia de Estudiantes,
during the sessions "Los límites de la Física Fundamental".
Full video available at: www.eddaddeplata.org