Americanscientists are reportedly close to discovering a new force of nature - which would be the fifth such finding in physics.
The Chicago-based Fermilab team are said to be finding more evidence that sub-atomic, “muon” particles are behaving differently from what current theories would suggest.
Scientists believe that an unknown force could be acting on the muons and, if proven, could mark the beginning of a revolution in physics.
Dr Brendan Casey, a senior scientist with Fermilab, told the BBC: "We’re really probing new territory. We’re determining the (measurements) at a better precision than it has ever been seen before."
What are the forces of nature?
All of the forces we experience in life can boil down to just four categories under scientific law. These are:
- Gravity,
- Electromagnetism,
- The ‘strong force’, also known as the ‘the strong interaction’ in nuclear physics
- The ‘weak force’, another nuclear physics phenomenon.
What do these findings mean?
Further evidence and examination could unveil a fifth force of nature after the research in the Fermilab particle accelerator.
The research team is now honing in on its conclusions and has reduced the uncertainty of its measurements by a factor of two - according to reports.
The Fermilab team does not have conclusive proof just yet, however.
Their next step will be to complete an experiment called G-2, where researchers will test out the muons against the current theory called the Standard Model of their behaviour.
The BBC reported that the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN project in Switzerland is also capable of proving the theory and that it may be a race between the two teams as to who can get there first.
What are muons?
All matter is formed of atoms - which then break down into smaller particles - and these exist and behave in accordance with what is around them, the forces of nature (see below). Their behaviour, for 50 years, has been accurately predicted by the Standard Model theory.
Atoms are broken down into components and include muons, which are unstable subatomic particles of the same class as an electron - but 200 times larger. The Fermilab experiment found that muons were wobbling faster than the Standard Model was predicting, which suggested there is a further force of nature in play.
