What is the Standard Model and where does it falter?
In the universe that the Standard Model describes, there are six quarks, which are the constituents of hadrons, and six leptons, which include electron, which interact through three forces: the strong nuclear force, which binds the nuclei, the weak nuclear force, which causes radioactivity and stars to shine and the electromagnetic force, which causes chemical reactions. The model has been tested by various experiments and it has come out with flying colours, particularly in predicting undiscovered particles. However, it does not explain the origin of mass and why some particles are heavy while others very light or have no mass at all. It endows mass to the particles through a theoretical mechanism called the Higgs mechanism. According to the theory, the whole space is filled with the “Higgs field” and particles acquire mass by interacting with this field. The catch is that the Higgs field has a particle associated with it, the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is one of the crucial missing
