It was the universe's most elusive particle, the linchpin for everything scientists dreamed up to explain how physics works. It had to be found. But projects as big as CERN's Large Hadron Collider the largest machine ever built, involving six thousand researchers and costing $9 billion and counting simply do not happen without conniving, deal-making, incredible risks, and occasional skullduggery.
In The Particle at the End of the Universe, award-winning physicist and science writer Sean Carroll reveals the insights, rivalry, and wonder that fuelled the Higgs search and explores why this particle holds the potential to change the world, much as the electron ushered in the age of nuclear energy and quantum computing. While the first sighting of the Higgs boson, infamously known as the “God particle”, essentially solves the riddle of why matter has mass, it also opens a door into the mind-boggling domain of dark matter and other extraordinary phenomena we never predicted.
Told with unparalleled ambition, authority, and access to the competing research teams, Carroll delivers the definitive account of this landmark event and takes us on a riveting and irresistible ride to the very edge of physics today.
