Gauge Bosons--The Ties That Bind.

In the September TST we described how all matter in our universe is composed of two basic classes of elementary particles, the quarks and leptons. But what can we say about the forces, or interactions, among particles in nature? A world with out physical interactions would not change: It would not deform, evolve, or synthesize. It would, in effect, be a world of very limited existence. One of the great triumphs of 20th century physics has been the realiza tion that each of the four basic forces in nature (strong force, weak force, electromagnetic force, and gravity) is associated with an elementary parti cle. The proper mathematical descrip tion of this fact depends on quantum field theory, one of the most ab struse, difficult, and yet beautiful areas of physical mathematics ever developed. In this article we can only attempt to describe the forces, or interactions, of nature in a very sim plified fashion.