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Product Description
Product Description
In this extraordinarily accessible and enormously witty book, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman guides us on a fascinating tour of the history of particle physics. The book takes us from the Greeks' earliest scientific observations through Einstein and beyond in an inspiring celebration of human curiosity. It ends with the quest for the Higgs boson, nicknamed the God Particle, which scientists hypothesize will help unlock the last secrets of the subatomic universe. With a new preface by Lederman, The God Particle will leave you marveling at our continuing pursuit of the infinitesimal.
About the Author
LEON LEDERMAN shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in physics and is the director emeritus of Fermilab, a worldwide organization of physists. He lives near Chicago, Illinois.^DICK TERESI is the coauthor of The Three-Pound Universe and a former editor of Omni magazine. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Lederman spends the first third of this book reviewing physics, from Greek times to the early this century; the second third focuses on the more recent history of particle accelerators - in which Lederman himself plays a part. All this is a necessary and fascinating preface to the final third - an exploration of the frontiers of knowledge in the exploration of the fundamental building blocks of nature, in which Lederman quietly pokes fun at physicists' attempts to find the answer to life, the universe, and everything - which they suspect might be very simple and beautiful, and at least partly to do with the God Particle - the Higgs Boson - a (so far) theoretical particle/force (I am not a physicist, so I can get away with this description) which gives mass to everything in the universe.
If reading this does not get you excited about physics, nothing will. I look forward to an update, Mr. Lederman - have you found Higgs yet?
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
First, thanks to Mr. Lederman for writing the book and trying his best to explain particle physics or maybe this wasn't even his aim... I couldn't quite tell in the end. The book starts out like Bryson's 'Brief History of Everything', but unfortunately Lederman's humor wasn't my cup of tea. At other times the book tried to be a tutorial, which was always an up-hill task on account of the topic. Finally, Lederman used the book to snipe at, pat the backs of, and glorify other physics people and to this end there were clearly many 'insider jokes' which again were not my cup of tea! My biggest single gripe in reading was the needlessness of the feminisation of God in the second person (she not he). In short my review reads... the book meandered slowly towards an explanation of the 'God Particle' before having to admit that presently (the 90's) it can't be proved one way or the other. This review may sound negative, so to end, I will say that Lederman does an adequate job in the main at explaining this part of physics to non-physisists like myself - if he had stuck to that task the book would have been a third shorter and better for it.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Leon Lederman, an old Nobel prize of Physics attempts in this book to explain and divulge modern physics, this is I think from Maxwell, who passed to mathematics the empiric discoveries of Faraday, to present times.
And I think the non professional reader can understand until mechanics of Newton who was understood fast in Europe at his time, but cuantic physics and mechanics I believe are too difficult for amateurs. Lederman attempts to attract common people with the aid of some examples of what relativity theory and modern physics should mean for common, daily life of ordinary people, and there, he surrounds dangerously the yet very handled theme of the "Voodoo science", science fiction or some else, in an attempt to popularize a science the own professionals accept sometimes they doesn't understand in full. I think the book is so too compressed and not ever easy to follow.
And I think the non professional reader can understand until mechanics of Newton who was understood fast in Europe at his time, but cuantic physics and mechanics I believe are too difficult for amateurs. Lederman attempts to attract common people with the aid of some examples of what relativity theory and modern physics should mean for common, daily life of ordinary people, and there, he surrounds dangerously the yet very handled theme of the "Voodoo science", science fiction or some else, in an attempt to popularize a science the own professionals accept sometimes they doesn't understand in full. I think the book is so too compressed and not ever easy to follow.
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