system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What is the Yukawa potential calculating?

The Yukawa potential seems to predict the strong interaction, the weak interaction AND the electromagnetic force. But that seems "overpowered"...
gpt
The Yukawa potential is the interaction potential corresponding to a very simple coupling between particles (Yukawa coupling).

It shows up in a lot of places because it turns out that a lot of particles are coupled in that way.

Potentials of the Coulomb form (“charge”/r) are really a special case of the Yukawa potential where the mass of the “force carrier” particle is zero. So that gives you the Coulomb force and part of the strong force between quarks (there’s another term representing confinement).

Then if the mass is not zero, as in the case of the weak interaction (W/Z bosons) and effective nucleon-nucleon interactions (various mesons), then you get the usual Yukawa potential of the form exp[-μr]/r.