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Theory of Everything (TOE), in physics, is a theoretical framework that, if discovered, would provide a unified description of all the forces of nature, called interactions. These are gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong force (a force that holds atomic nuclei together), and the weak force (the force responsible for certain radioactive processes, for example: beta decay). The American physicist Steven Weinberg has argued that a Theory of Everything would be logically isolated—that is, it could not be modified without being destroyed. The history of physics suggests that such a final theory may be possible. The theory of gravitation formulated by the English physicist Isaac Newton in 1687 provided a unified description of the circular motion of oru moon and the fall of an apple. Similarly, the theory of electromagnetism formulated by the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell about 1873 unified electric, magnetic, and optical phenomena. About 1968 Steven Weinberg and the Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam independently formulated the electroweak theory, which unifies the weak interaction and the electromagnetic interaction through the use of a mathematical technique known as gauge symmetry. Currently, the best candidate for a TOE is the theory of superstrings. Copyright©1998
by Thinkquest Team 20632
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