| Themes > Science > Physics > Elementary particle physics > Elementary particle physics Today > String Theory and the Unification of Forces > Success of the Standard Model |
The Standard Model gives us a recipe to calculate the rates at which interactions take place. We can then measure the same rates in an accelerator or other laboratory, and compare with the theory. The result of this comparison has been very successful, and has ultimately led to several Nobel Prizes in Physics. In 1979, the prize was awarded to theorists Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg, who proposed the theory of electromagnetic and weak interactions. In 1984, it went to experimentalists Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer, for the detection of the W and Z particles predicted by the model. The 1976, 1988, 1990 and 1995 Nobel Prizes were given for other experiments that corroborated aspects of the Standard Model, and the 1999 prize went to theorists Gerardus 'tHooft and Martinus Veltman for elucidating the mathematical theory that underlies it. |
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