The movements of objects are directed by natural force, and bosons are the particles which transmit force. All forces except gravity can be expressed through the same model.
All particles have a sort of angular momentum which is labeled spin. Among other properties, spin serves in sorting constituents.
The Four Natural Force Carriers
Photons, gluons, W, and Z particles are bosons. There are also a number of unconfirmed yet likely carriers of force.
Photons, as carriers of the electromagnetic force, travel at the cosmic speed limit (the speed of light, roughly 186,400 miles per second in a vacuum) and can therefore have no mass.
The particles which transmit the weak force, W and Z, are not massless, but they lose mass as they approach absolute zero (-456 degrees Fahrenheit). Temperature is lowered for experiments in superconductors.
The W boson can have a positive or negative charge (+1 or -1), and the Z boson is electrically neutral. Z bosons can only transfer momentum, and their interactions are therefore called neutral current interactions.
Gluons are the strong nuclear force carriers, and they have a spin of +1. There are eight distinct gluons, each their own antiparticle. No free state gluons have been observed.
Hypothetical Bosons
The Higgs Boson it currently vital to explaining the origins of the mass. It has no spin, and it is also its own antiparticle.
The model used to describe forces, called gauge theory, requires that all bosons have zero mass. The W and Z bosons have mass, and the Higgs boson was predicted to compensate for the discrepancy.
X and Y bosons may or may not exist. If they do exist, it is presumed that they would allow for a new force which would bind particles called leptons to particles called quarks. It is also anticipated that the graviton will be found as the carrier particle of gravity.
The Four Natural Forces
Gravity's main aspect is attraction, and it is felt and influenced by all energy, everywhere. Even light loses energy in the gravitational field of a massive body.
The electromagnetic (EM) force is more powerful than gravity, and it too has infinite range. It is so much more powerful than gravity that if the ratio of positively- to negatively-charged particles were even slightly different than it is now then gravity would be overpowered beyond comparable result.
Electricity and magnetism are both facets of the electromagnetic force; these aspects are identical, it is the vantage of the observing perspective which produces the apparent split in force. When in motion, magnetic charges can appear as an electric current, something those familiar with the workings of an alternator can attest to, and an electric charge in motion creates a magnetic field.
The strong and weak nuclear forces are far more powerful than gravity and electromagnetism, but their range is limited to the sub-nuclear level. Though the effects from these two forces are not as visibly noticeable, they are just as crucial to the structuring of our universe.
The weak interaction and strong force are both modeled from electromagnetism. It is also the only force which breaks parity. Breaking parity essentially creates true randomness in universal flow, and under our current understanding it-makes-determinability-impossible.
The strong force is roughly 100 times stronger than the electromagnetic force. The strong force balances the electromagnetic repulsion between two positively charged particles, and without this balance complex structures could not exist in any known form.
