While the identity of their basic gauge nature can be considered established, the physics underlying the different behavior of the photon and of the intermediate weak bosons is still unknown. This goes under the name of  ElectroWeak Symmetry Breaking problem. Most likely, the so-called Standard Model of the elementary particle interactions only offers an effective phenomenological description of EWSB. The solution of this problem is preliminary and central to any possible unified view of the interactions among the elementary particles, including gravity. Experimentally, its investigation is at the core of the  program of the Large Hadron Collider, under construction at CERN in Geneva.

I will review the present status of the EWSB problem and a recent proposal to address it.