Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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| energy transmitted in wave motion, especially electromagnetic wave motion |
| the property of a system that diminishes when the system does work on any other system, by an amount equal to the work so done |
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supersymmetry  (s 'pər-sĭm'ĭ-trē) Pronunciation Key
A theory of physics that states that for each boson (a subatomic particle that carries a fundamental force, such as the photon, which carries the electromagnetic force) there is a corresponding fermion with the same mass. The theory is an attempt to unify the fundamental forces of matter under one theory. Supersymmetry has not been shown to hold in the real world, though some scientists suspect that evidence for it may be found only at extremely high energies; some also believe that certain particles predicted by the theory may make up dark matter. |
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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supersymmetry
in particle physics, a symmetry between fermions (subatomic particles with half-integer values of intrinsic angular momentum, or spin) and bosons (particles with integer values of spin). Supersymmetry is a complex mathematical framework based on the theory of group transformations that was developed beginning in the early 1970s to understand at a more-fundamental level the burgeoning number of subatomic particles being produced in high-energy particle accelerator experiments. It has evolved to address internal inconsistencies that arose in attempts to unify the forces in the Standard Model of particle physics. Supersymmetry is an essential feature of supergravity, the quantum field theory of the gravitational force, and of string theory, an ambitious attempt to provide a self-consistent quantum theory unifying all particles and forces in nature.
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