How do physicists know the weak force is short range?

The weak force has very short range because its carriers, the W and Z bosons, are heavy, with masses around 80 and 91 GeV/c² respectively. In quantum physics, a force carried by a heavy particle becomes short-ranged because the particle cannot propagate far before the interaction fades. This was confirmed when the W and Z bosons were discovered at CERN in 1983. The weak force therefore matters in nuclear decay and particle interactions, but not in everyday macroscopic forces. Its short range is one reason it can change particle types without acting like gravity or electromagnetism.