- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Virgin Books (17 Jun 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 190526495X
- ISBN-13: 978-1905264957
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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372,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #59 in Books > Science & Nature > Physics > Particle & High-Energy Physics
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Product Description
Review
'A fast-moving narrative ... a great scientific adventure.' --Frank Close, Focus Magazine
'Fine reportage ... makes clear the sheer achievement of the scientists and engineers who have built the LHC, the most complex machine ever made in the service of pure science.'
--Graham Farmelo, Guardian
`Wondering what all the hype over the Higgs boson is about? Look no further ... A hundred anecdotes bring the towering figures of particle physics and their key discoveries to life.' --New Scientist
"When the Higgs boson is discovered, it will be front page news, and this is the book that sets the stage. Ian Sample mixes cutting-edge science with behind-the-scenes stories to paint a compelling picture of one of modern science's greatest quests."
-- Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here
'Fine reportage ... makes clear the sheer achievement of the scientists and engineers who have built the LHC, the most complex machine ever made in the service of pure science.'
--Graham Farmelo, Guardian
`Wondering what all the hype over the Higgs boson is about? Look no further ... A hundred anecdotes bring the towering figures of particle physics and their key discoveries to life.' --New Scientist
"When the Higgs boson is discovered, it will be front page news, and this is the book that sets the stage. Ian Sample mixes cutting-edge science with behind-the-scenes stories to paint a compelling picture of one of modern science's greatest quests."
-- Sean Carroll, author of From Eternity to Here
Book Description
The dramatic and gripping account of how one big idea has brought life and order to the universe, sparking the greatest race science has ever seen
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Great book on a timely topic that is hard to write for general public. If you are looking for a book to explain what all the fuss is over the "God Particle" this is the one to read. Dr. Sample does a great job of bringing together the history, theory, and experimental aspects of the mass mechanism for everyone to understand. Everyone reads about the LHC and finding the "Higgs Boson" but little is written about the history and how this came to be.
It is a quick read and flows well with antidotes about the people involved that are pulled out through extensive interviews and research. Certainly there will be an updated version of this once the results are confirmed from Fermi or LHC and Nobels are awarded - along with the associated controversies.
Strengths of the book include:
1) Well written and easy to read
2) Quick read
3) Handles tough topic for non-physicist
4) Sets up well for next edition
5) Well researched with great interviews of subjects (Weinberg for example)
While the book is very Peter Higgs' centric in chapters three and four that probably makes sense given the name of the boson and need for the story to focus on someone. The years that Higgs spend after the 1964 papers toiling with an extension and defending the findings were interesting while the other theorists moved on to other work in the USA and Belgium. Higgs was not actually the first to work on this since Guralnik and Hagen were working with Gilbert on the issue well before 1964. But overall the book is a great overview of the theory work that is not often shared.
I am looking forward to how the story ends outside of the book, the USA edition, and the certain versions from Dr. Sample that will follow.
Great book. Great effort.
It is a quick read and flows well with antidotes about the people involved that are pulled out through extensive interviews and research. Certainly there will be an updated version of this once the results are confirmed from Fermi or LHC and Nobels are awarded - along with the associated controversies.
Strengths of the book include:
1) Well written and easy to read
2) Quick read
3) Handles tough topic for non-physicist
4) Sets up well for next edition
5) Well researched with great interviews of subjects (Weinberg for example)
While the book is very Peter Higgs' centric in chapters three and four that probably makes sense given the name of the boson and need for the story to focus on someone. The years that Higgs spend after the 1964 papers toiling with an extension and defending the findings were interesting while the other theorists moved on to other work in the USA and Belgium. Higgs was not actually the first to work on this since Guralnik and Hagen were working with Gilbert on the issue well before 1964. But overall the book is a great overview of the theory work that is not often shared.
I am looking forward to how the story ends outside of the book, the USA edition, and the certain versions from Dr. Sample that will follow.
Great book. Great effort.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The Schleswig-Holstein question was one of the conundrums of nineteenth century
politics. Lord Palmerston once remarked that only three people had ever
understood it - one of whom was dead, and another was in an asylum. He
himself was the third, but he had forgotten what it was. The significance of
the God particle, aka the Higgs boson, could be Schleswig's modern
equivalent. In the 1990s Science Minister William Waldegrave offered a
bottle of champagne to anyone who could explain the Higgs boson's
significance on a side of A4. The winning entry compared its allure to that
felt by Tory MPs for then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Guardian
journalist Ian Sample takes a little longer than a side of A4, but does an
outstanding job of narrating the unfinished search for this elusive particle,
which (if it exists) is many times heavier than a proton and lives for only a
tiny fraction of a second before vanishing. Its short lifetime means that
scientists cannot look directly for it, but must search for longer lasting
entities into which it might decay.
The search is not yet finished. It will probably be at least five years
before accelerators in Switzerland and the USA give us a definite answer, and
there is a definite chance that the Higgs boson does not exist. Stephen
Hawking has bet $100 that it will never be found. A measure of Sample's
success is that his book does not leave the reader with a sense of
anticlimax. This is a whodunit without the indentification of the murderer,
or even the certainty that a murder has been committed - surely a recipe for
frustration. Yet I ended his book wanting to cheer on the researchers at the
LHC (Switzerland) and the Tevatron (USA) accelerators to get there faster.
Sample's background is journalistic, and as a result the book gives the
impression of making the maximum out of the minimum amount of background
research, with the possibility that some of his nuances may be misleading.
The absence of photographs leaves one felling a little short-changed. We
want to see what the young Higgs looked like at the start of his road to
fame. Equally, the book could have been much enhanced by some collision
images from the particle detectors, if only to show us how difficult is the
task of interpreting them. But these are quibbles.
politics. Lord Palmerston once remarked that only three people had ever
understood it - one of whom was dead, and another was in an asylum. He
himself was the third, but he had forgotten what it was. The significance of
the God particle, aka the Higgs boson, could be Schleswig's modern
equivalent. In the 1990s Science Minister William Waldegrave offered a
bottle of champagne to anyone who could explain the Higgs boson's
significance on a side of A4. The winning entry compared its allure to that
felt by Tory MPs for then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Guardian
journalist Ian Sample takes a little longer than a side of A4, but does an
outstanding job of narrating the unfinished search for this elusive particle,
which (if it exists) is many times heavier than a proton and lives for only a
tiny fraction of a second before vanishing. Its short lifetime means that
scientists cannot look directly for it, but must search for longer lasting
entities into which it might decay.
The search is not yet finished. It will probably be at least five years
before accelerators in Switzerland and the USA give us a definite answer, and
there is a definite chance that the Higgs boson does not exist. Stephen
Hawking has bet $100 that it will never be found. A measure of Sample's
success is that his book does not leave the reader with a sense of
anticlimax. This is a whodunit without the indentification of the murderer,
or even the certainty that a murder has been committed - surely a recipe for
frustration. Yet I ended his book wanting to cheer on the researchers at the
LHC (Switzerland) and the Tevatron (USA) accelerators to get there faster.
Sample's background is journalistic, and as a result the book gives the
impression of making the maximum out of the minimum amount of background
research, with the possibility that some of his nuances may be misleading.
The absence of photographs leaves one felling a little short-changed. We
want to see what the young Higgs looked like at the start of his road to
fame. Equally, the book could have been much enhanced by some collision
images from the particle detectors, if only to show us how difficult is the
task of interpreting them. But these are quibbles.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is the story of the search for the Higgs Boson - the tell-tale particle predicted by the theory of the Higgs mechanism which physicists believe is important in explaining why things are heavy.
To tell the story of the search, Ian Sample tells the story of some of the minds behind it, embroidering the tale with colourful anecdotes gleaned from the many interviews he held with those involved. To try to discover the Higgs Boson, the largest and most complex machines known to man have been created and developed and this is also the story of the technological development of, and the political wrangling behind, these particle colliders culminating in the early experiments performed by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
It is an engaging read despite the complex nature of the subject matter.
Sample is an awarding winning science journalist and those that have read his work in the Guardian will recognise the entertaining, easy to read, jovial style. The quest for the Higgs Boson is at the vanguard of current physics research - which is complicated stuff - and Sample does a very credible job of explaining in lay terms why it is important and in doing so of placing the whole of modern physics in context. He does such a good job, in fact, that I not only recommend this book to anyone who has heard about particle physics or the LHC and wants to know more, but suggest that it is required reading for anyone embarking on undergraduate studies in physics for whom it is a great book for the summer vacation.
To tell the story of the search, Ian Sample tells the story of some of the minds behind it, embroidering the tale with colourful anecdotes gleaned from the many interviews he held with those involved. To try to discover the Higgs Boson, the largest and most complex machines known to man have been created and developed and this is also the story of the technological development of, and the political wrangling behind, these particle colliders culminating in the early experiments performed by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
It is an engaging read despite the complex nature of the subject matter.
Sample is an awarding winning science journalist and those that have read his work in the Guardian will recognise the entertaining, easy to read, jovial style. The quest for the Higgs Boson is at the vanguard of current physics research - which is complicated stuff - and Sample does a very credible job of explaining in lay terms why it is important and in doing so of placing the whole of modern physics in context. He does such a good job, in fact, that I not only recommend this book to anyone who has heard about particle physics or the LHC and wants to know more, but suggest that it is required reading for anyone embarking on undergraduate studies in physics for whom it is a great book for the summer vacation.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Brilliant
Although i haven't finished the book yet i'm finding a great read. The author really has a gift for making very tough concepts a lot easir to digest. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Stevo
Good description of particles, first half of book is worth reading
I liked the first half of the book, it clearly explained the major advances in Particle Physics over the last one hundred and fifty years. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Hugh Claffey
Good science and an easy read.
This covers the history of particle physics with lots of science and politics as well as some interesting anecdotes about individual scientists. Read more
Published 14 months ago by plot hound
Quite big
This is a highly entertaining book that with Ian Sample's "interesting" style conveys a history of particle physics in easy to understand terms. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Noah Neartheshops
Too much gee-whiz
An interesting account but too much gee-whiz hero-worship. Every physicist is either a genius or brilliant and usually both. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Geejay
Not massive
I was extremely upset and disappointed by this book.
It is not "massive" at all.
It is the same size as a normal book.
I have sent it back.
It is not "massive" at all.
It is the same size as a normal book.
I have sent it back.
Published 22 months ago by Grumpy
A good read
This book tells the tale of advanced research in particle physics over the last hundred years and a little bit more. It is clear, entertaining and quite a quick read. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Hugh Noble
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