Invisible Forces ================ My Revisions to your "Short Form": "Invisible forces" references those physical properties that produce "exotic" phenomena such as weak and strong nuclear interactions, gravity, magnetism, the Higgs boson, dark matter and dark energy. Some "action-at-a-distance" or "non-contact" forces are thought to be mediated by virtual particles that may exhibit quantum entanglement. Such "hidden" forces used to be "invisible" but are now more or less understood. These forces allow remote parts of the environment (and the universe) to exert a force on an object without being in contact with it. What we do know is that such action-at-a-distance forces are very real and that we experience them every day. [And yet the effects of these forces can only be described probabilistically. Quantum mechanics seems mysterious, especially when we factor in the extra dimensions proposed in string theory.] Within the context of LOoW we understand Invisible Forces as fundamental physicists properties. But we are also attracted to and invested in their metaphorical and social connotations as potential and probable influences on artistic practice. How is climate change an invisible force on our daily lives? In what ways does herd mentality act as an invisible force on human decision making? ... [The part in square brackets is still unclear; I'd recommend omitting it.] ------------------------------------------------------------ Okay, now let me say what I really think, so I can get it out of my system and hopefully be more cooperative: ------------------------------------------------------------ Since the first time someone saw a lodestone stick to an iron sword as if by magic, we humans have marveled at "invisible forces". What we usually mean by that, of course, is UNFAMILIAR forces. Gravity is every bit as "invisible" as magnetism, but we are used to it and think we understand it. In truth, gravity is no longer considered a "force" at all by those who know it best. Perhaps this will someday be true of ALL the "forces" we teach our Physics students about -- that would be elegant! But for the time being we still use the term "force" to describe most known interactions. IMNERHO, there is no such thing as a "visible" force. We imagine that our feet pushing on the ground is a "direct" force; but that is only because we cannot see the electrons and nuclei attracting or repelling each other at a distance, much as the magnet under the table causes the iron ball bearing on top of the table to move mysteriously. That microscopic (nay, nanoscopic) world is "out of sight" by virtue of being too small to see, and therefore pragmatically "invisible". Physics shows us that the electrons are moved by electromagnetism: "action at a distance" (albeit no longer "spooky") just like Newton's gravity. The same is true (albeit on an even smaller scale) of the weak and strong nuclear "forces", which are "carried" by virtual vector bosons and gluons, respectively, much as electromagnetic forces are "carried" by virtual photons of light. One can argue equally well that, because virtual "force carriers" are emitted and absorbed by the particles they bind or repel, ALL such "forces" are truly "direct", in which case there is no such thing as an "invisible force" except in the sense that the "vertices" where the creation and destruction take place are too small to ever "see" directly, although we keep trying with more and more powerful accelerators. Let us then be content to use the term "invisible"in the colloquial sense: we can't see what's going on with our naked eyes. This still allows us to put some pretty weird stuff into that category: Higgs "forces", the undiscovered interactions of Dark Matter, the pressure of Dark Energy and the theoretical actions of 26-dimensional "strings", to name a few. ------------------------------------------------------------