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Puzzle #4
#4. Is Nature 'supersymmetric', and if so, how is supersymmetry broken?
Many Physicists believe that unifying all the forces, including gravity, into a single theory would require showing that two very different kinds of particles are actually intimately related, a phenomenon called 'supersymmetry'.
The first, fermions, are loosely described as the building blocks of matter, like protons, electrons, and neutrons. They clump together to make stuff. The others, the bosons, are the particles that carry forces, like photons, conveyers of light. With supersymmetry, every fermion would have a boson twin, and vice versa.
Physicists, with their compulsion for coining funny names, call the so-called superpartners 'sparticles': For the electron, there would be the selectron; for the photon, the photino. But since the sparticles have not been observed in nature, physicists would also have to explain why, in the jargon, the symmetry is 'broken': The mathematical perfection that existed at the moment of creation was knocked out of kilter as the Universe cooled and congealed into its present lopsided state.
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