This post is a collection of quotes from Eugene Khutoryansky's weak force video on YouTube. I recommend that everyone should watch this video and check out Eugene's channel. There are 16 quotes divided into 5 sections.
Click here to watch the video
Click here to view Eugene's channel
1. Quarks exchanging W bosons
2. Leptons exchanging W bosons
3. Particles and Z bosons
4. Chirality
5. Why is the weak force weak?
1. Quarks exchanging W bosons
"The W boson has an electric charge of either positive +1 or negative -1."
"The weak force allows a quark with a charge of -1/3 to transform into a quark with a charge of +2/3. And it allows a quark with a charge of +2/3 to transform into a quark with a charge of -1/3. These transformations occur either by emitting a W boson or absorbing a W boson."
"Like all other phenomena in the universe, the weak nuclear force obeys the conservation of electric charge."
"A quark and an anti-quark can combine to become a W boson. And a W boson can be split into a quark and an anti-quark."
2. Leptons exchanging W bosons
"The emission or absorption a W boson can cause a neutrino to transform into its associated charged lepton. Or for a charged lepton to transform into its associated neutrino."
"The electron and its heavier cousins each of which has an electric charge of -1. Each of the neutrinos has an electric charge of 0."
3. Particles and Z bosons
"The Z boson has an electric charge of zero."
"The Z boson can also be absorbed or emitted by matter or by anti-matter particles. But unlike the case of the W boson, exchanges of the Z boson do not transform a particle from one type of particle to another."
"A Z boson can split into a matter particle and its associated anti-matter particle [for both quarks and leptons]. A matter particle and its associated anti-matter particle can combine to become a Z boson."
4. Chirality
"...there are actually two versions of each matter and each anti-matter particle. One version has what call a left handed chirality and the other has what we call a right handed chirality. Note: The existence of right chiral neutrinos and left chiral anti-neutrinos has not yet been confirmed as of the date of this video (2018)."
"Chirality is a purely quantum mechanical property that has no analogy in classical physics. It deals with what direction the complex numbers describing the particle's quantum state rotate around the complex plain when the particle is rotated around its direction of motion."
"Only the left chiral version of the matter particles and only the right chiral version of the anti-matter particles are able to absorb and emit the force carriers of the weak nuclear force, the 'W' and 'Z' bosons."
5. Why is the weak force weak?
"Both the W boson and the Z boson have an extremely large rest mass."
"Unless the particle has an extraordinarily large amount of kinetic entry, when any particle other than the top quark emits a W or Z boson, this momentarily violates the conservation of energy. In these cases, the W and Z bosons exist only as 'virtual' particles."
"The greater the violation of the conservation of energy, the smaller the duration of time for which it can occur, and the lower the probability that an interaction involving these virtual particle will happen. As a result, for all particles except the top quark, interactions with the W and Z bosons are very rare. This is the reason why the weak nuclear force is so incredibly weak."
"When dealing with a top quark, the weak nuclear force is usually the strongest force in existence."
