-- 81 --

As we have emphasized, the concept of spin, although superficially akin to the image of a spinning top, differs in substantial ways
that are rooted in quantum mechanics. Its discovery in 1925 revealed that there is another kind of rotational motion that simply
would not exist in a purely classical universe.

This suggests the following question: just as ordinary rotational motion allows for the symmetry principle of rotational invariance
("physics treats all spatial orientations on an equal footing"), could it be that the more subtle rotational motion associated with spin
leads to another possible symmetry of the laws of nature? By 1971 or so, physicists showed that the answer to this question was
yes. Although the full story is quite involved, the basic idea is that when spin is considered, there is precisely one more symmetry
of the laws of nature that is mathematically possible. It is known as supersymmetry.51

Supersymmetry cannot be associated with a simple and intuitive change in observational vantage point; shifts in time, in spatial
location, in angular orientation, and in velocity of motion exhaust these possibilities. But just as spin is "like rotational motion,
with a quantum-mechanical twist," supersymmetry can be associated with a change in observational vantage point in a "quantum-
mechanical extension of space and time." These quotes are especially important, as the last sentence is only meant to give a rough
sense of where supersymmetry fits into the larger framework of symmetry principles.52 Nevertheless, although understanding the
origin of supersymmetry is rather subtle, we will focus on one of its primary implications—should the laws of nature incorporate
its principles—and this is far easier to grasp.

In the early 1970s, physicists realized that if the universe is supersymmetric, the particles of nature must come in pairs whose
respective spins differ by half a unit. Such pairs of particles—regardless of whether they are thought of as pointlike (as in the
standard model) or as tiny vibrating loops—are called superpartners. Since matter particles have spin-½ while some of the
messenger particles have spin-1, supersymmetry appears to result in a pairing—a partnering—of matter and force particles. As
such, it seems like a wonderful unifying concept. The problem comes in the details.

By the mid-1970s, when physicists sought to incorporate supersymmetry into the standard model, they found that none of the
known particles—those of Tables 1.1 and 1.2—could be superpartners of one another. Instead, detailed theoretical analysis showed
that if the universe incorporates supersymmetry, then every known particle must have an as-yet-undiscovered superpartner particle,
whose spin is half a unit less than its known counterpart. For instance, there should be a spin-0 partner of the electron; this
hypothetical particle has been named the selectron (a contraction of supersymmetric-electron). The same should also be true for the
other matter particles, with, for example, the hypothetical spin-0 superpartners of neutrinos and quarks being called sneutrinos and
squarks. Similarly, the force particles should have spin-½ superpartners: For photons there should be photinos, for the gluons there
should be gluinos, for the W and Z bosons there should be winos and zinos.

On closer inspection, then, supersymmetry seems to be a terribly uneconomical feature; it requires a whole slew of additional
particles that wind up doubling the list of fundamental ingredients. Since none of the superpartner particles has ever been detected,
you would be justified to take Rabi's remark from Chapter 1 regarding the discovery of the muon one step further, declare that
"nobody ordered supersymmetry," and summarily reject this symmetry principle. For three reasons, however, many physicists
believe strongly that such an out-of-hand dismissal of supersymmetry would be quite premature. Let's discuss these reasons.

The Case for Supersymmetry: Prior to String Theory

First, from an aesthetic standpoint, physicists find it hard to believe that nature would respect almost, but not quite all of the
symmetries that are mathematically possible. Of course, it is possible that an incomplete utilization of symmetry is what actually
occurs, but it would be such a shame. It would be as if Bach, after developing numerous intertwining voices to fill out an ingenious
pattern of musical symmetry, left out the final, resolving measure.

Second, even within the standard model, a theory that ignores gravity, thorny technical issues that are associated with quantum
processes are swiftly solved if the theory is supersymmetric. The basic problem is that every distinct particle species makes its own
contribution to the microscopic quantum-mechanical frenzy. Physicists have found that in the bath of this frenzy, certain processes
involving particle interactions remain consistent only if numerical parameters in the standard model are fine-tuned—to better than
one part in a million billion—to cancel out the most pernicious quantum effects. Such precision is on par with adjusting the launch

51
The discovery and development of supersymmetry has a complicated history In addition to those cited in the text, essential early contributions were made by R. Haag, M. Sohnius, J. T.
Lopuszanski, Y. A. Gol'fand, E. P. Lichtman, J. L. Gervais, B. Sakita, V. P. Akulov, D. V. Volkov, and V. A. Soroka, among many others. Some of their work is documented in Rosanne Di
Stefano, Notes on the Conceptual Development of Supersymmetry, Institute for Theoretical Physics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, preprint ITP-SB-8878.
52
For the mathematically inclined reader we note that this extension involves augmenting the familiar Cartesian coordinates of spacetime with new quantum coordinates, say u and v,
that are anticommuting: u × v = -v × u. Supersymmetry can then be thought of as translations in this quantum-mechanically augmented form of spacetime.