The standard model is stunningly successful; it’s consistent with the results of every subatomic experiment ever made. But the model isn’t complete. It doesn’t incorporate gravity; it applies to only about 4 % of the mass–energy content of the universe, since it doesn’t include dark matter or dark energy; and it contains 19 parameters, the values of which are unexplained and must be inserted “by hand”. Physicists desperately want to find evidence of physics beyond the standard model, but so far no cracks have appeared: the standard model remains solid even though we know, somewhere, it must
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