The fundamental physical forces may be summarized as follows:
- The strong force holds quarks together in nucleons, preventing matter from turning into some kind of quark gas.
- The nuclear force allows atomic nuclei to exist; without it, all matter would be hydrogen gas.
- The weak force turns particles into different particles, producing radioactivity and indirectly distributing most of the energy in the universe.
- The Pauli exclusion principle prevents matter from collapsing into a single Planck length sphere of Bose-Einstein condensate.
- Gravity creates black holes, galaxies, stars, and planets.
- The electromagnetic force stops you from falling into them, and also creates light, electricity, magnetism, chemical reactions, and everything else.