Supersymmetry Part 2

Supersymmetry proposes that there are more elementary particles that are yet to be discovered. According to Supersymmetry every particle in the Standard Model has what is known as a superpartner also referred to as a supersymmetric particle or a super particle. A supersymmetric particle has a lot more mass than its partner particle. Physicists believe that the reason that these supersymmetric particles have not been discovered is that they are too massive to be detected in the particle accelerators of the past. Particle accelerators are machines that smash particles together at high speeds to break them into their constituent particles. Older particle accelerators cannot generate enough energy to approach the speeds needed to produce supersymmetric particles. Physicists are hoping to discover some of the supersymmetric particles with the use of the newer large scale particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.

Supersymmetry relates the particles that transmit forces to the particles that make up matter. For every boson (particle that transmits a force) there is a corresponding supersymmetric fermion and for every fermion (particle that makes up matter) there is a corresponding supersymmetric boson. The existence of superpartners would double the amount of elementary particles in the Standard Model. Supersymmetry also introduces a new kind of mathematics. In the math that we use in everyday life numbers that are multiplied are commutative. That is to say that the numbers can be swapped with each other on both sides of the multiplication operator and they will still produce the same result; for example A x B = B x A. The math of supersymmetry can have A x B = -A x B or A x A = 0 even if A is not equal to 0. The combination of superpartners and the math of supersymmetry allow the particles in the Standard Model to be shuffled around an interchanged without creating inconsistencies in the equations that are applied to them. 

Supersymmetry is an important element for string theory. Evidence for supersymmetry at high energy would be compelling evidence that string theory is a good mathematical model for nature at the smallest distance scales.