From: ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de   
      
     I have heard people saying something like:   
      
     "It is possible that those forces become unified in the case   
     of an energy above E0.".   
      
     The "forces" might have been the electro-weak and the strong   
     force.   
      
     The energy /of which system/ are they talking about?   
      
     To make this more clear for me, it might help to describe   
     a concrete situation or experimental setup where such an   
     energy is given.   
      
     I also assume it has to be an energy in the center-of-mass   
     system? Not a mere kinetic energy. So, one form of energy is   
     excluded. Are there any other forms of energy that are also   
     excluded? For example, the mass-energy of a paperweight should   
     be quite high, yet it does not exhibit unification of forces   
     (AFAIK), so somehow, this case also has to be excluded.   
     So, the energy of which system under which circumstances   
     exactly is required for a such a possible unification of   
     forces?   
      
     (The above was my /main/ question. But just in case that   
     someone has a good, short and simple explanation of what   
     "unification of forces" means and why a unification is   
     expected for high energies, I would like to hear that, too.)   
      
     TIA   
      
   [[Mod. note -- Perhaps the phrase we're looking for is something like   
   "center-of-mass energy of the interaction".  Your paperweight presumably   
   contains about 10^26 elementary particles, so its (large) mass-energy   
   would need to be divided among a (large) number of elementary-particle   
   interactions, leading to a rather low energy in any single interaction.   
   -- jt]]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)