Weinberg's scholarly research has focused on finding a commonality among the four fundamental forces of nature--the strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. James Maxwell had supplied the model for this kind of research in the 1860s and 1870s when he was able to develop a single set of equations that showed how electricity and magnetism relate to each other. Weinberg chose to pursue the next step in solving this problem, finding a way to express similarities between the electromagnetic force and the weak force, a force responsible for certain types of nuclear reactions.

Weinberg's task was particularly difficult because it meant comparing two apparently vastly different forces. The electromagnetic force operates between two objects large enough to be studied with the naked eye and over apparently infinite distances, but the weak force, operates only on a nuclear level.

The type of mathematics used to deal with such discrepant frames...