Fields or Bosons

We have studied gravitational, magnetic and electric fields of force. These are regions of space where forces act act on objects which have certain qualities, e.g. mass and charge.

What exactly happens between two charge when they attract each other?

How do we explain this "action at a distance"?

We have described the effects mathematically in some detail but this is NOT the same as explaining what underlying mechanisms take place.

Modern physics gives us a model in which these forces are transmitted by "force carriers". These are bosons, e.g. the photon, which transmits the electromagnetic (electrostatic and magnetic) force.

Particles which have charge emit a field of virtual photons. (virtual photons borrow energy from the void to come into existance. They exist for a very short time then disappear, returning the energy they borrowed.)

When two particles which have charge attract or repel each other they do so by exchanging these photons. here we see two electron repelling each other.

Think of bosons as messenger particles. They send the message "there's another electron here, get lost!". The more there are, the stronger the field.