Great Idea 10

Idea10: The standard model
  
  

      The Standard Model is a theory in particle physics, which  describes and predicts all the fundamental particles that constitute matter. It’s a unified theory that includes  three of the four known forces in Nature: electromagnetic force, weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. The current formulation was finalized in the mid-1970s. The Standard Model has been verified with the announcement on July 4, 2012, that evidence for the Higgs boson was obtained at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is the world's largest and most powerful particle collider,run by CERN. 

The standard model is at the frontier of scientists’ understanding of fundamental physics. Much of the research in basic physics over the last 50 years has been centred around the standard model.