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angle of a bullet fired from an enormously powerful rifle, so that it hits a specified target on the moon with a margin of error no
greater than the thickness of an amoeba. Although numerical adjustments of an analogous precision can be made within the
standard model, many physicists are quite suspect of a theory that is so delicately constructed that it falls apart if a number on
which it depends is changed in the fifteenth digit after the decimal point.53

Supersymmetry changes this drastically because bosons—particles whose spin is a whole number (named after the Indian physicist
Satyendra Bose)—and fermions—particles whose spin is half of a whole (odd) number (named after the Italian physicist Enrico
Fermi)—tend to give cancelling quantum-mechanical contributions. Like opposite ends of a seesaw, when the quantum jitters of a
boson are positive, those of a fermion tend to be negative, and vice versa. Since supersymmetry ensures that bosons and fermions
occur in pairs, substantial cancellations occur from the outset—cancellations that significantly calm some of the frenzied quantum
effects. It turns out that the consistency of the supersymmetric standard model—the standard model augmented by all of the
superpartner particles—no longer relies upon the uncomfortably delicate numerical adjustments of the ordinary standard model.
Although this is a highly technical issue, many particle physicists find that this realization makes supersymmetry very attractive.

The third piece of circumstantial evidence for supersymmetry comes from the notion of grand unification. One of the puzzling
features of nature's four forces is the huge range in their intrinsic strengths. The electromagnetic force has less than 1 percent of the
strength of the strong force, the weak force is some thousand times feebler than that, and the gravitational force is some hundred
million billion billion billion (10-35) times weaker still. Following the pathbreaking and ultimately Nobel Prize-winning work of
Glashow, Salam, and Weinberg that established a deep connection between the electromagnetic and weak forces (discussed in
Chapter 5), in 1974 Glashow, together with his Harvard colleague Howard Georgi, suggested that an analogous connection might
be forged with the strong force. Their work, which proposed a "grand unification" of three of the four forces, differed in one
essential way from that of the electroweak theory: Whereas the electromagnetic and weak forces crystallized out of a more
symmetric union when the temperature of the universe dropped to about a million billion degrees above absolute zero (1015
Kelvin), Georgi and Glashow showed that the union with the strong force would have been apparent only at a temperature some
ten trillion times higher—around ten billion billion billion degrees above absolute zero (1028 Kelvin). From the point of view of
energy, this is about a million billion times the mass of the proton, or about four orders of magnitude less than the Planck mass.
Georgi and Glashow boldly took theoretical physics into an energy realm many orders of magnitude beyond that which anyone had
previously dared explore.

Subsequent work at Harvard by Georgi, Helen Quinn, and Weinberg in 1974 made the potential unity of the nongravitational
forces within the grand unified framework even more manifest. As their contribution continues to play an important role in
unifying the forces and in assessing the relevance of supersymmetry to the natural world, let's spend a moment explaining it.

We are all aware that the electrical attraction between two oppositely charged particles or the gravitational attraction between two
massive bodies gets stronger as the distance between the objects decreases. These are simple and well-known features of classical
physics. There is a surprise, though, when we study the effect that quantum physics has on force strengths. Why should quantum
mechanics have any effect at all? The answer, once again, lies in quantum fluctuations. When we examine the electric force field of
an electron, for example, we are actually examining it through the "mist" of momentary particle-antiparticle eruptions and
annihilations that are occurring all through the region of space surrounding it. Physicists some time ago realized that this seething
mist of microscopic fluctuations obscures the full strength of the electron's force field, somewhat as a thin fog partially obscures
the beacon of a lighthouse. But notice that as we get closer to the electron, we will have penetrated more of the cloaking particle-
antiparticle mist and hence will be less subject to its diminishing influence. This implies that the strength of an electron's electric
field will increase as we get closer to it.

Physicists distinguish this quantum-mechanical increase in strength as we get closer to the electron from that known in classical
physics by saying that the intrinsic strength of the electromagnetic force increases on shorter distance scales. This reflects that the
strength increases not merely because we are closer to the electron but also because more of the electron's intrinsic electric field
becomes visible. In fact, although we have focused on the electron, this discussion applies equally well to all electrically charged
particles and is summarized by saying that quantum effects drive the strength of the electromagnetic force to get larger when
examined on shorter distance scales.

53
For the reader interested in more details of this technical issue we note the following. In note 6 of Chapter 6 we mentioned that the standard model invokes a "mass-giving particle"—
the Higgs boson—to endow the particles of Tables 1.1 and 1.2 with their observed masses. For this procedure to work, the Higgs particle itself cannot be too heavy; studies show that its
mass should certainly be no greater than about 1,000 times the mass of a proton. But it turns out that quantum fluctuations tend to contribute substantially to the mass of the Higgs
particle, potentially driving its mass all the way to the Planck scale. Theorists have found, however, that this outcome, which would uncover a major defect in the standard model, can be
avoided if certain parameters in the standard model (most notably, the so-called bare mass of the Higgs particle) are finely tuned to better than 1 part in 1015 to cancel the effects of these
quantum fluctuations on the Higgs particle's mass.