Chalk up another win for the Standard Model, the remarkably successful theory that describes how all the known fundamental particles interact.
Physicists have made the most precise measurement yet of how strongly the weak force — one of nature's four fundamental forces — acts on the proton.
The results, published today (May 9) in the journal Nature, are just what the Standard Model predicted, dealing yet another blow to physicists' efforts to find kinks in the theory and discover new physics that could explain what dark matter and dark energy are. [Strange Quarks and Muons, Oh My! Nature's Tiniest Particles Dissected]
Despite its triumphs, the Standard Model is incomplete. It doesn't explain dark matter and dark energy, which together may make up more than 95 percent of the universe and yet have never been observed directly. Nor does the theory incorporate gravity or explain why the universe contains more matter than antimatter.
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