From: "Alberto Monteiro
>
> dendriite wrote:
> >
> >Maybe I'm screwed up here (again), but dont all the carriers of force
> >*operate* at c. photons, gluons..ect. And arent neutrinos part of the
> >exchange of forces in some respect?
> >
> No, the mesons operate at v < c, that's why the nuclear forces
> have a short range
It's more complex than that.
The strong force is conveyed by mesons (at least in a low
energy approximation) but it isn't a fundamental force. The
fundamental force is the colour force, with the strong force
merely being the Van der Waals equivalent.
The colour force is conveyed by massless gluons, and is
short range because of the way the vacuum gets polarized
by colour charge.
The other nuclear force is the weak force, which is conveyed
by the W and Z. Those particles have mass, acquired from the
Higgs, which is why the weak force is short range.
All the forces are conveyed by bosons. Neutrinos are fermions
and not part of any force. There is some reason to believe that
neutrinos have a small mass (it would solve the solar neutrino
problem) but the evidence is not conclusive.
Robert
