Re: how many "forces" (or better, interactions)?

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca>]

> In response to John's comment, my answer is that there are actually
> *five* known interactions:
>
>  1.  gravity
>  2.  electromagnetism
>  3.  weak interaction
>  4.  strong interaction
>  5.  Higgs interaction
>
> Very little is known about the fifth, but we do know more about it
> today than was known about the weak interaction fifty years ago.
> In particular, its existence is not controversial.

Sixty three years ago we had the Fermi theory of beta decay,
a model for a natural phenomenon. By fifty years ago there
was already much confirmatory evidence regarding the weak
interaction. What is the natural phenomenon that is explained
by the Higgs interaction?

Leigh