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weak force |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.09 sec. |
weak forceor weak nuclear forceFundamental interaction that underlies some forms of radioactivity and certain interactions between subatomic particles. It acts on all elementary particles that have a spin of ¹⁄₂. The particles interact weakly by exchanging particles that have integer spins. These particles have masses about 100 times that of a proton, and it is this relative massiveness that makes the weak force appear weak at low energies. For example, in radioactive decay, the weak force has a strength about 1/100,000 that of the electromagnetic force. However, it is now known that the weak force has intrinsically the same strength as the electromagnetic force, and the two are believed to be only different manifestations of a single electroweak force (see electroweak theory). |
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But not to literary dissolution, for a poetics makes a truth--claim: "a poetics does not record the strong force of hard facts; it describes the weak force of a call for the kingdom, or for justice, which is true even if the real world is truly unjust. For example: Are the four basic forces of nature--the electromagnetic force, the weak force that controls nuclear decays, the strong force that holds atomic nuclei together, and gravity--variations of a single, more fundamental force? Because these particles are very massive their range is too short to allow their direct exchange between nucleons interacting via the weak force. |
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