The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World

by Sean Carroll

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 don’t happen without incredible risks – and occasional skullduggery. In the definitive account of this landmark event, Caltech physicist and acclaimed science writer Sean Carroll reveals the insights, rivalry, and wonder that fuelled the Higgs discovery, and takes us on a riveting and irresistible ride to the very edge of physics today.

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction, Popular Science, History, Audiobook, Astronomy

320 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2012

About the author

Sean Carroll is a physicist and philosopher at Johns Hopkins University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993. His research focuses on spacetime, quantum mechanics, complexity, and emergence. His book The Particle at the End of the Universe won the prestigious Winton Prize for Science Books in 2013. Carroll lives in Baltimore with his wife, writer Jennifer Ouellette.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plato’s Revenge

The Standard Model of Particle Physics, the technology of high-energy accelerators, the politics of Big Physics, and the personalities of the Biggest Scientists are the diverse subjects of Sean Carroll’s history of this fundamental but peculiar slice of science. Fundamental because it claims to be searching for the ultimate components of the universe. Peculiar because so much of what it has found about these components is counter-intuitive and frequently beyond imagination.

As in science’s ancient matrix of theology, words fail, metaphors falter, and, for the layman at least, patience flags. The ‘layers’ of purported reality seem to multiply with every advance in thinking and technology. Whatever ‘fundamental’ means, it doesn’t carry that meaning for long.

This seems to have become the essential ethos of experimental physics: If results aren’t surprising, they’re not valuable. Gone are the days (if they ever existed) when the aim of physics was to explain. Careers and reputations depend on confounding rather than confirming what we already know. One wonders whither the sociology of science as well as science itself?

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much of this went over my head.
So veryveryvery much.
But I walked out of the room a tad smarter than when I walked in, so we'll call this a win.
And isn't that the point?



Sean Carroll takes the reader on an adventure that spans years (and years and years) telling a story of all the stops and starts as dedicated scientists drum up the funding for what would eventually be CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
And there have been lots of payoffs for their hard work, but the most famous is the Higgs.
If you pay any attention to the science-y side of things you'll remember what a huge deal it was when they found the evidence they were looking for to confirm the Higgs boson particle.



And while quarks, black matter, and string theory are all things I strive to get my tiny dinosaur brain to make sense of, I think I can say now at least that I understand the importance of the Higgs, even if I don't understand everything about particles or physics.
Carroll has such an engaging manner that even when what he was talking about was going in one ear and out the other, I was still enjoying myself.



Ironically enough, I wouldn't even be writing this review right now if it weren't for scientists at CERN needing to share massive amounts of data information with each other, leading to Tim Berners-Lee developing the World Wide Web.
Proving once again that the search for answers for the sake of the question typically leads us to new and interesting places.



The moral of the story is that science is fun, inspiring, and just really fucking cool.
Hopefully, we will always have little kids with big imaginations and loads of curiosity, who grow into big kids with even bigger imaginations and loads of international funding, that allows them to continue discovering the secrets of our universe.
Recommended.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carroll tells us about the discovery of the Higgs boson and the importance of the underlying Higgs field to the Standard Model of particle physics. He describes the Large Hadron Collider, how it works, how it was used to find the Higgs boson and why this was so difficult. He imparts a bit of drama describing some of the key people involved and the excitement of the physics community at seeing an enormous amount of work come to fruition in 2012 at CERN. The Higgs had been theorized years earlier by its namesake Peter Higgs and others. Its discovery validated the Standard Model and bolstered physicists’ faith in this widely accepted picture of the laws of nature. In the Standard Model, the Higgs field imparts mass to particles (specifically charged fermions and W and Z bosons). The Higgs is not responsible for all mass, but if it were missing, electrons would lose mass and atoms could not form. Thus, if the Higgs field were to disappear, we and everything else would go poof.

What really intrigued me about this book however, wasn’t the story of the discovery. It was Carroll’s lucid explanations of the Standard Model, the relationships between and properties of the particles, and particularly of quantum field theory. He explains how symmetry leads to force carrying bosons, how fields produce particles and how fields facilitate particles changing into and generating new particles. He does this without math, so it is a simplified version of this vision of reality, but one I could get my arms around. He starts with the basics, categorizing the particles and forces and steadily introduces more complicated concepts and ends throwing the most complicated topics in appendices such as an explanation of spin. I appreciated this graduated approach.

Carroll explains wave particle duality straightforwardly. “According to quantum field theory absolutely everything is made of a field or combination of fields. What we call ‘particles’ are tiny vibrations in fields.” “The fields themselves aren’t ‘made of’ anything – fields are what the world is made of. We don’t know of any lower level of reality. Magnetism is carried by a field, as are gravity and the nuclear forces. Even what we call ‘matter’ – particles like electrons and protons – is really just a set of vibrating fields.” “Matter is really waves (quantum fields), but when we look at it carefully enough we see particles.” “How the world appears when we look at it is very different from how it really is.”

Carroll proceeds throughout the book to describe interactions in terms of particles, yet he keeps us aware that underlying this image are vibrations in fields that induce vibrations in other fields. Visualizing this was more satisfying to me than trying to picture a particle just changing into a different one or ones. For example when a neutron decays becoming a proton after emitting an electron and antineutrino we might wonder where these new particles came from. Fermi in 1934 suggested the following way of thinking about it by applying field theory to fermions. Each of these particles come from their own fields, thus you can visualize the transfer of a vibration from the neutron field to the fields for the other particles even though you can’t see the vibrations, only the particles once the transfer is complete. This also explains virtual particles which appear to constantly be coming into and out of existence which are transient vibrations that can be a stepping stone from one particle to another. A Higgs boson can decay into two photons, but not directly, first it couples with a massive virtual particle (usually a top quark) producing the photons. Try thinking of this interaction in terms of vibrations in fields. This was a signature reaction the Higgs hunters were looking for and found at the LHC. The Higgs itself decays so quickly that it is never seen and is identified by its end products, in this case the two photons.

The discussion above should give those interested the flavor of the book. I found Carroll’s descriptions of symmetry, symmetry breaking, and even spin helpful as were those of fields and virtual particles. Although there were, of course, many things I found difficult to understand if not incomprehensible. For example Carroll describes spin, “One of the consequences of quantum mechanics is that individual particles can also have ‘spin’ even though they are not really rotating around anything.” But for me the puzzles are part of the enjoyment of books like this. I’ve read two of Carroll’s other books: The Big Picture and From Eternity to Here . I loved them both. The Particle at the End of the Universe is more down to earth (if that is fair to say about science based on quantum mechanics) than the other two but every bit as enjoyable.

[brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent? - Richard Feynman


we've heard the soundbites: the large hadron collider made possible the discovery of the higgs boson, the particle which gives mass to things. but, that doesn't help us too much. for one, we wonder, why does a particle need to give mass? why don't things simply just have mass? & why does the acquisition of knowledge nearly always seem to make things more complicated? it kinda does. no way around that.

carroll explains that the higgs field fills space and interacts with the particles moving through it, giving some of them mass (well, giving mass to quarks, charged leptons, and the W&Z bosons… y'gonna have to read the book for the juicy details). the higgs boson is the particle we observe when we interact with a vibration in that field.

carroll does a great job of explaining the difficult stuff (still haven't fully wrapped my head around all the symmetry crap) and doesn't get so pointy-headed that the beauty or - to use that favorite adjective of science types - 'elegance' of the whole mess is lost on the non-physicist.

sitting on my balcony watching clouds roll by, a cluster of birds appearing from over the horizon, a receding storm (or, more likely, a few tranny hookers venturing up into the hills for a brief respite from cocksucking and cokesniffing) i imagine seeing all that can't be picked up by the naked eye: quantum fields everywhere, gravity pulling everything in the universe toward everything else, the tiny 'vibrations' in the higgs field of which carroll writes, trillions & trillions of particles batted about… and then you can do that power of ten thing and imagine stepping away from earth to solar system to galaxy to galaxy cluster, etc etc etc. ugh. such simple things as smallness and bigness really can put a serious existential damper on one's day… week… month… year… life… or, as per r. feynman, it can unlock within the physical world a child's toybox for grownups. your choice.

[David Rubenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist, and he has written an engaging book about the history of the search for the Higgs boson. This is a fundamental particle that cannot be observed directly, but can only be surmised by indirect evidence in a high-energy accelerator. Its existence was proved by two experiments at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN, on the border between Switzerland and France.

Sean Carroll tells the story of the LHC wonderfully. He tells the story of the predecessors to LHC, the inception of the machine and the efforts of Lyn Evans in building it. Color illustrations give the reader a clue of the complexity and immensity of the largest machine ever built by man. Over six thousand scientists worked together on the two experiments, proving the existence of the Higgs boson. This is big science at its biggest. While there is still room in physics for small-scale experiments, high-energy particle physics demands enormous machines, and large-scale international efforts.

The book also describes the context of the Higgs boson in particle physics. Several chapters go into considerable detail about the hierarchy of particles, their characteristics and interactions. It gets complicated--very complicated. To tell the truth, there are several places where I got lost. I re-read those sections, but I still didn't "get it". There are three appendices that explain the physics in more detail (with no equations at all). In the first appendix, I was understanding the descriptions of particle spin, degrees of freedom and symmetry-breaking. But the last step in which Carroll jumps to the characteristic of mass being imparted by the Higgs field simply left me behind. I think that something crucial is missing from Carroll's descriptions here.

On the whole, Carroll's descriptions of the physics are excellent. He engages in lots of metaphors from everyday experiences to give some concreteness to the very abstract notions. For example, the inverted pendulum gives a good, intuitive approach to the level of energy of a Higgs boson. Carroll also uses some apt--and fun--metaphors. For example, he describes how Angelina Jolie walking across a party room full of people will be slowed down by fans wanting an autograph. She "breaks the symmetry" because if Carroll were to walk across the same room, he would not be approached and would cross the room unhindered. Carroll also writes about how dropping Mentos into bottles of Diet Coke will have the same result when you are sitting still, as when you are in a train going 100 miles per hour.

This book was written before the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded in 2013. So, Carroll devotes a chapter to the stories of all of the contenders. One of the sections describes the landmark work by Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble. This section is particularly interesting to me, as Gerald Guralnik is the father of a colleague of mine. As a result, I have heard quite a lot about this topic, and while it turns out that Guralnik did not receive the Nobel Prize, he was a very strong contender.

I enjoyed reading the historical aspects of the theory and experiments. But, the descriptions of the theory itself--the so-called "Standard Model" of quantum physics--go into such a level of detail that I got lost. Carroll himself points out at one point that without going through the equations, you just have to "trust him" on certain points. Therein lies a gap, and I couldn't quite make the leap.

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Without the Higgs Boson throwing its weight around, we'd all resemble mucoid strings of unpalatable jello. Or more so.

I have desperately wanted to put together a review that, in compartmentalized but orderly fashion, connects the various utterly absorbing stories which Carroll is telling in this highly-recommended book about the discovery of the elusive Higgs Boson on July 4th, 2012, at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland; a review wherein the politics, personalities, costs, designs, copious hard work, wonderful international unity and [mostly] comity in this laborious voyage of important particulate discovery was so juicily constructed that book stores would be nigh overwhelmed by the enthused rush of good readers hurtling through spacetime in an effort to get their mitts on a copy of this gem as quickly as proved feasible within a four-dimensional reality construct. Alas, I've blisters on my feet, a boil on my ass, a sebaceous cyst on my back, and internal blockage running near four days worth at the moment. That is, I can nae do that which I so desired—thus, as a lesser-of-two-evils option [the alternative being to shut the fuck up!] I'm going to transcribe the notes I took whilst devouring Carroll's word wizardry. This will mark the fourth time I've resorted to this cop-out procedure—and, rest assured, it will not stand as the last...

ELEMENTARY PARTICLES:



BOSONS

Photon: Feels the Electromagnetic Force.

Graviton: Feels the Gravitational Force.

Gluon: Feels the Strong Nuclear Force.

W+,W-,Z Bosons: Feel the Weak Nuclear Force.

Higgs Boson: Feels the Higgs Field.



FERMIONS

Leptons: Electron - Muon - Tau and their neutrinos

Quarks: Up/Down - Charm/Strange - Top/Bottom - always come in threes of red, blue, green, and take a 2/3 positive or 1/3 negative charge.

Hadrons: Neutrons - 2 down/1 up charge, and Protons - 1 down/2 up charge. Hadrons, composed of the three quark colours, are always colourless.

Fermion symmetries are broken by the Higgs Field, and the difference is 1 electrical unit.

The Higgs Field permeates empty space and gives mass to the elementary particles. It is a blemish upon the otherwise beautiful symmetries of the Standard Model.

Based on the electron volt scale, we can see that even the center of the sun is not hot enough to produce electrons, neutrons, or protons—it needs close to Big Bang temperatures to do that. It's why accelerators need more speed and power to see particles made invisible because of their heaviness.

ABOUT THE CERN LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

The LEP (Large Electron Positron) Collider was so precise it could detect to within a percentile of an inch the moved effect of the moon's gravity upon the 17 mile long pipe. These instruments are very precise—and much more so than the Hadron Colliders. The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in Geneva is a spherical collider of clockwise and counterclockwise streamed protons—an enormous construct, its circumference runs to seventeen miles!

The tube has superconductor magnets 100,000 times the strength of the Earth's magnetic field, and are colder than space. The tubes are vacuum sealed and conduct proton fills up to 99.99996% the speed of light—and a pencil lead-sized beam of these protons has the kinetic energy of a moving train. The magnets are cooled by liquid helium; the protons are hydrogen atoms with the electrons stripped away by electric currents. The electric grid speeds the proton beam fills with every pass in separate clockwise and counterclockwise beam pipes. As of 2012, the LHC operates at 8 TeV (Terra electron volts); the goal is to reach 14 TeV, high enough to explore and detect further exotic particles of ultraheavy weight.



ATLAS and CMS are the huge trap detectors for discovering particles emitted from the rapid decay of exotic particles like Higgs Bosons or Top Quarks. The particles emitted are 1 of the 6 quarks, leptons, or force-carrying bosons; and a collision of billions of particles might only result in 20 or 30 interactions! There is lots of empty space, even within proton beams.

The vast majority of data collected by the LHC is instantly thrown away—it's too much data, and they have no choice: quantum mechanics orders that only a few events are not trivial, and so the LHC must produce huge numbers of them to get the new and the unexpected.

The long red streaks below are muons detected in a particle collision with the LHC; the clumped middle streaks are electrons, hadrons, and photons. These muons may have been created from the decay of a Higgs boson



THE HIGGS FIELD AND BOSON

The world is made out of fields—they are the lowest level of reality we know. Particles arise from field as vibrations, and symmetry gives rise to forces—the Higgs Field breaks symmetry to give us the variety of particles we have detected.

High mass implies short wavelength—hence, the size of an atom is determined by the longer wavelength electron(s).

Matter is really waves—quantum fields—but when we look at it carefully enough we see particles. While bosons can be stacked one on the other, Fermions cannot—each vibrational frequency of the latter's fields are either on or off. This means that each fermion particle has its own energy level, location, spin, etc, and no other fermion can be in exactly the same state. This is known as the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

Matter is vibrations in a field, and we can thus think of the decay of a neutron into a proton, electron and anti-neutrino as a vibration altering from one form into that of three different ones—as long as it obeys the conservation laws of energy, electric charge, and quark/lepton count. The basic rule is that larger particles prefer to decay into smaller ones, as long as those conservation laws can be strictly obeyed.

The Higgs Field is literally all around us, for it is non-zero in empty space. Its field permeates our reality, and its influence on our particles is what gives them their unique properties. It fills space, breaks symmetries, and gives mass and individuality to all other particles—without it, our universe would be wholly unrecognizable and unlivable.

The Higgs Field can be perceived as an inverted pendulum whose rest mass—whether right or left—is of 245 GeV (Giga electron volts), and so it costs energy to be moved upright to zero [an analogy remarkably similar to the procedure of male erection, sans subjective and/or non-subjective friction]. An ordinary field is the mirror opposite, a hanging pendulum which rests at zero and requires energy to be moved to a horizontal position—whether right or left—hence, it seeks the zero point, whereas the Higgs Field desires to lay at rest in either direction all primed with non-zero energy.



If the Higgs Field didn't exist, electrons would have little to no mass—and because, in Quantum Mechanics, the lower energy/mass a particle has, the longer the wavelength, atoms would be huge—at certain energy amounts, galactically so—and complex molecules could not form. There would also be no broken symmetries of the charged leptons—Tau/Muon/Electron—nor the three charged quarks—2/3 positive and 1/3 negative—that is, you could replace any one with the other, because they would all have the same mass and charge. Particle symmetries—valence for leptons, flavor for quarks—mean you can rotate one for another and see no difference. It is the Higgs Field that breaks these symmetries and allows for the variation among these particles.

Physics particle symmetries are transitional invariance, rotational invariance, motional invariance—gauge, or local symmetries that allow bosons to form from the connexion fields that give vim to the Four Forces of Nature. All of the bosons are massless and move at the speed of light, except for those of the Weak Force: the W+- and Z bosons are given mass and charge by consuming three of the four Higgs Bosons that would exist if the Higgs Field didn't break symmetries in the Weak Force. Because the pendulum of the Higgs Field can rest at either right or left—and it requires massive, universe-sized energy to lift it to a zero-state of being upright—it breaks the left/right symmetries of quarks and lepton pairs—top/bottom, charm/strange, up/down and the three electron/muon/tau and neutrino pairs—so that only one of the two has symmetry, while the other doesn't; otherwise they would all be the same size and perfectly symmetrical. This accounts for the W+- and Z boson's strange number and mass, and that protons and neutrons have a near symmetry but not a perfect one. Gauge symmetries are broken and left/right distinctions made in the Weak Force through the existence of the Higgs Field.

HOW THE HIGGS BOSON WAS DETECTED

Higgs bosons are difficult to detect because most of the time they decay into quark/antiquark pairs which, as Hadron sprays, are extremely difficult to isolate from general proton smashing results. What physicists look for are the rare cases when the Higgs Boson decays into one of the following:

i: W+ and W- bosons --> muons/electrons and neutrinos or antimuons/positrons and antineutrinos.

ii: 2 Z bosons --> electron/muon or positron/antimuon.

iii: 2 charged particles --> photons.

Sigmas are numeric intervals indicating deviations from the statistical mean, usually as a bell curve of probability as based upon the null hypothesis [the expected results]. Sigma of 3+, and preferably of 5 sigma, are demanded for a discovery of the Higgs Boson from a very wide spread of data.



HISTORY OF THE GLOBAL & GAUGE THEORIES THAT LED TO HIGGS FIELD/BOSON

Gauge symmetries—local ones that necessarily come with connexion fields that give rise to force, have strict rules of symmetry: massless bosons that move at light speed and, hence, whose fields spread over infinite distances. This seems obvious for gravity and electromagnetism, but the nuclear forces are different. The Strong Force has massless gluons hidden inside of hadrons, while the W+- and Z bosons of the Weak Force are given mass by spontaneous symmetry breaking. The latter bosons, together with the Higgs, were set on the trail of discovery when physicists probed the qualities of global symmetries—that is, transformations must be carried out uniformly everywhere at the same time—which produced mathematical impossibilities; but this process pointed to local symmetries—in which transformations can be carried out separately at every location—wherein the answer was to be found.

BCS and Landau-Ginzberg theories of superconductivity postulated that the electric force moves unimpeded through such as the carrier pairs of electrons, which 1/2 spin combines to 1 and act as a massed photon. The presence of a bosonic field—unknown—allows a photon to have mass and move unimpeded past other atoms and electrons. This was determined to require a field of non-zero value which spontaneously broke the symmetry of the electromagnetic field and its requirement that all bosons be massless. Physicists developed this as a theory: global symmetries are broken by a field that otherwise would produce N number of scalar [non-spin] bosons. With the boson symmetry in place, all but 1 of this N number become massless, and the one remaining becomes massive.

Yang-Mills gauge bosons and Nambu-Goldstone global bosons are posited massless particles—Anderson proposed that you start with the massless force-carrying particles and that those N number of bosons arising from spontaneous symmetry breaking combine into ONE massive boson—but this requires a field across all of non-zero space, which General Relativity tells us must have an enormous energy which would be detectable by our instruments in empty space.

Higgs was one of three groups of physicists who tackled this problem; but he was first of them to explore the details of how we start with N number of equal mass scalar bosons and N1 massless gauge bosons before the local symmetry breaking—afterwards the scalar bosons are gobbled up by massive gauge bosons—the W+- and Z of the Weak Force found in the 1980s—and one massive scalar boson, which is the Higgs Boson, as well as another gauge boson which starts and remains massless as a photon.

Higgs' work developed from Y-M, N-G, and Anderson, and was near simultaneously developed by Englert-Brout. The third group of physicists, Guralnik, Hagen & Kibble, approached the problem from a Quantum Mechanical point-of-view, manually setting the scalar boson to zero mass to achieve their results. All three had similar ideas and solutions to symmetry breaking at gauge levels.

Carroll provides a really captivating history of the historic 20th century attempts to unite the Electromagnetic and Weak Forces via neutron decay into massless neutral gauge bosons—the photon—and various produced massive weak bosons—W+- and Z—which had not been detected yet; however, soon theorists would run into infinity problems, via the hand-tooling required to break the symmetries, particularly the Electromagnetic—together with purity problems, the favoring of left-handed particles over right-handed ones which the Electromagnetic force explicitly does not do.

Higgs | Englert-Brout | Guralnik, Hagen & Kibble: discovered the symmetry-breaking gauge process.

Glashow-Weinberg-Salam: confirmed the Electroweak unification via the Higgs mechanism.

Hooft: mathematically proved spontaneously-broken gauge symmetries are renormalizable.

WHERE THE HIGGS DISCOVERY MAY TAKE US

Dark Matter density in vacuum space:



Can the Higgs Boson detection prove helpful to other problems like that of Dark Matter—as the latter should only feel Gravity and the Weak Force, it may interact with the Higgs Field, decaying via Higgs Bosons into Standard Model particles, or even perhaps into the Higgs Boson itself. WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) quantity predictions align nicely to those for Dark Matter itself—and it may prove that the discovery of the Higgs Boson opens the long sought for link between our world and what mysteriously comprises the vast majority of matter in our universe.

A pair of significant problem for physicists are that Higgs Field energy is much lower than estimates say it should be, while vacuum energy—better known as Dark Energy—is 10^120 times less than it should be across the measured universe—and this last is truly a stunning amount of disparity between theory and current detection. Will stronger colliders with higher energies allow us to detect the exotic particles whose decay properties will guide us towards solving these vast and disturbing discrepancies?

Supersymmetrical Particle Chart:



Supersymmetry: if supersymmetry exists, then the LHC will be looking for 5 Higgs Bosons, of which the one detected on July 4th, 2012, would have to be the smallest in size. Supersymmetry is wacky business, but it nicely accounts for the Hierarchy Problem and could potentially solve the Dark Matter energy incongruency, with neutralinos—no, not the popular children's cereal!—serving as the stable mass particle; if this proves to be the case, then physics will finally have effected a unification of Particle Physics with Cosmology; very heady business, that.

WHY THIS BOOK GAVE ME SCIENTIFIC WOOD

A truly wonderful and enlightening book, wherein Carroll shows himself a science writer of the first rank: never overwhelming the reader with the complex mathematics and conceptualizations required to make sufficient sense of the physics being described, while also refusing to buckle to the pressure to limn everything by means of lame television analogies. He's also possessed of a wickedly dry sense of humour, something he wields as effective punctuation to release stored tension from stretches where things are getting slippery. Furthermore, there are three excellent appendixes at the back in which the reader who desires a more thorough and sound schooling in the scientific details of the processes previously brought to light are set forth. The discovery of the Higgs Boson was the end point of a remarkable amount and progression of international cooperation and scientific history—another example, and one of the best I've yet encountered, of the supremely impressive human capacity for puzzling through the veils of reality's multi-faceted puzzles to try and determine how this whole insanely-interrelated business of the cosmos came to be. It's a tale wholly uplifting in its themes, its results, the dreams being pursued, and the wonderful array of human beings involved in its coming to fruition. After recent immersion within the sordid details of human history via the fictive and historical word, it proved a genuine pleasure to lose myself in the pages of this kind of edifying and fortifying material. The highest recommendation for any and all.

[Христо Блажев · Rating 4 out of 5]

На лов за елементарни частици: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/c...

В последно време излязоха доста книги за Космоса (примерно класиката “Бледа синя точица” на Сейгън и знаковата “Вселена от нищото” на Краус), но “Частица на края на Вселената” гледа в другата посока – към безкрайно малките тухлички на реалността. Там, където всякакви шантаво звучащи теории се сблъскват с реалността на експерименталните данни, пречупват се в нещо още по-шантаво – и се оказва, че много абсурдни на пръв поглед идеи са в съзвучие с това, което наблюдаваме. До следващата, по-добра теория.

Издателство "Изток-Запад"
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/c...

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

The library sent me this one as part of their ‘free audiobooks for the sight impaired’ scheme (that’s not what it’s called but I can’t be bothered to look it up) and I’m so happy they did because I absolutely loved it.

Sean Carroll writes well, conversationally, enthusiastically and with a liberal helping of humour (but not too many gags, thankfully). His greatest strength for me, though, is his way with an analogy. He really knows how to explain things to the semi-educated layman (like me).

If you’re at all interested in the Higgs Boson or the Large Hardon Hadron Collider, I can’t recommend this book enough.

If you like Hadron Colliders... and standing out in the rain...

[Jose Moa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each book about the standard model has its own personality,this one aside to rather briefly describing the model is more centered in tell the history of discovery of the Higgs boson announced by the CERN in July of 2012 and the histhory of the differen particle accelerators and its incerasing energies,Tevatron,SLAC,RHIC and others,but specially the Large Hadron Collider ruled by the CERN and the new physics that posibly this accelerator can open a door to,also tells the histhory of the failed by lack of funds of the SSC, that with a energy of 40 Tev could be three times more energetic that the LHC.

The author hopes this accelerator help to solve the fundamental problems in the particle Physics;the problem of the very different strenght between the different interactions,the problem of why exist three idntical except in masses families of fermions and the asimetry between matter and antimatter.

The book also tells the histhory of the role of the idea of the the Higgs field in the symetry breaking,but in rather tecnical form ,difficult to follow for no specialists,where i frankly get lost.
Also makes a defense of the money spent in the building of this machines as a rewarding investiment that promote new tecnologies.

The book has three appendices,the first has a interesting explanation of the relation of the spin helicity and the neccesity of the adquiring mass by a fermion in the model,the second describes the different particles of the model and the third makes a graphic description of the fundamental Feynnman diagrams of the particles of the model and how we can see a complex desintegration of a particle joining this fundamental diagrams

[Kuhajeyan Gunaratnam · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is fields as far the science can get to now, particles are vibrations in those fields - mass & force carrying particles. We have a conjured up standard model proves to be correct, and completes along with the finding of Higgs boson.

It is an appreciable work from Carroll, that does well to instigate curiosity in particle physics. Details journey how CERN came got build and along the works done in Fermilab are good to know. Probably the Ligos' findings got late before the release of book, so now we know gravitational waves do exist too. Bringing particle physics to public would be toughest endeavor, but Sean does some good justice.

Yet the quest is not done, elusive question of why everything is here takes another gear. Until CERN gets another upgrade for high energy particle collision we may to wait for while turn the next page. Journey is set for Gravitons, Dark matter , Dark Energy and so on. Everyone knows this is going to be long long road ahead.

Values have to so price so universe could exist? So God didn't have choice when set things in motion? or did he? or are we fooled? did we have start really?

[Victoria Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Impressive!💖

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction lately; yet another example of my whims, I think. There’s a few more physics books on my list to get to, too, though I might give them a bit of a rest right now. The problem with me reviewing all of these is, of course, that I wouldn’t know a Higgs boson if it came up and introduced itself. All I can say is how well I understand what the writers offer. In Sean Carroll’s case, I felt my understanding was pretty good: the chapters are relatively short and build slowly toward a sketch of the full picture, and he doesn’t use technical terms that’re too hard to understand or anything like that.

And while I don’t think I could explain much of this to anyone (except maybe the basic ideas about symmetry breaking, and fields), at least I’ve retained some of the information, which has always been my problem when it comes to math and physics. (That and my tendency to go, “Yeah, I can parrot back to you what you want me to say, but why is it that way?” until my teachers resorted to “because I said so!”)

Of course, this was published over a year ago now, so it’s probably out of date in new and exciting ways. I’m content to trail behind the leading edge, I think… One of my big hopes about my Open University course is that I’ll start to understand physics a bit more, but even then I think string theory and its ilk will be beyond me.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a great continuing conversation for anyone who got sucked into Stephen Hawking's "Brief History of Time" back in the day, and came away from that one with an interest in the Standard Model of particle physics. This one is less accessible-more nuts and bolts than Hawking's style, with less scientific philosophy and creative metaphor to help the lay reader to really understand. Also: the book deals with one of the most interesting machines built in human history, but wastes most of the photo sections on pictures of physicists no one will ever meet. If they all looked like Einstein maybe it would be an interesting tribute, but they don't and it isn't. On the other hand, Sean Carroll IS attempting to describe the potential discovery of the most complex and confusing component of the Standard Model so...

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the definition of understanding a subject is being able to summarise it in your own words for the benefit of someone else then I admit failure. Whilst I learnt a lot from this book there was still much that I couldn't fully comprehend. Nevertheless, I doubt that any other author could explain the concept of the Higgs field and Higgs boson in a better way than Sean Carroll. He has a talent for putting across difficult ideas in a way that non-specialists can follow. Yet even he, at least as far as I was concerned, couldn't fully gets the Higgs concept across to the extent that I could fully understand it. But the despite the challenges presented by the book, I still very much enjoyed reading it and I'm undoubtedly better informed than I was before I started, especially on the concept of symmetry which is so important for an understanding of the Higgs theory.

[Diane Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually 4.5 star, but I love this book. There doesn't seem to be a quick easy way to describe what the Higgs boson is, what it does and why we should care. Carroll carefully and methodically takes the reader through each of these and I, a person with no physics background, am actually learning and understanding about particle physics (at a layperson level, obviously). I think I need to read it a second time to really solidify my understanding, but I've learned tons on just this first reading.
Not finished yet, but even if the few remaining pages and appendices completely suck (which i can't imagine really) this book is still a must-read for anyone curious about the Higgs hoopla and what the heck the LHC does.

[Lemar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sean Carroll effectively communicates his knowledge and enthusiasm about the search and discovery of the Higgs boson. After reading this book a person can explain the significance of the discovery and share in the excitement of the collective accomplishment. In addition, the exposure to Carroll's scientific mind, equal parts skepticism and wonder, is time well spent.

Carroll is willing to speak in declarative sentences, not a lot of hedging here.

"Matter is really waves (quantum fields and parentheses), but when we look at it carefully enough we see particles."

Those like me looking for an engaging and authoritative explanation of humanity's greatest scientific experiment, both in scope and dollars, they will not be disappointed in this book.

[Ami Iida · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finish reading the book.
last chapter it is written "Dark Matter" in it.
Higgs Boson and LHC are written in detail in it.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This really would be more of a 4.5 but since the lack is in me, I don't think it is fair to pull down the rating of the book. I keep reading science books in hopes of eventually understanding this stuff. It is absolutely fascinating! I do wish I had more of a brain for understanding science! It is really some of the most fascinating things in the world! In any case, on to this specific title.

From comments in the book I am positive that the obvious allusion in the title is there on purpose. He didn't specifically comment on that part of the title, just noting that he is aware that Higgs Bosons are not at the edge of any world and admitting that the title isn't exactly modest! This was in reference to another title, the God Particle (the authors of that book noted in a subsequent edition that they chose "God Particle" because the publishers wouldn't let them call it the Goddamn Particle which they contend would have been much more accurate!) Carroll writes in a very entertaining style and clearly is fascinated by this field. This is not his specific field, he dabbles more in cosmology and gravitation, which probably explains some of what wandered into the text on gravitation and cosmology. For once, I feel I actually understood a lot of what was explained in this book. Usually I find physics to be completely bewildering but I really understood at least a few concepts this time so I'm thrilled. One of the things that Carroll is very emphatic about is that it isn't really the Higgs Boson that is of fascination, it is the Higgs FIELD that is fascinating. The Boson (a force carrying particle) is more or less a wrinkle in the Higgs Field. The Higgs Field is compared to molasses: it more or less grabs onto all the particles from other fields and slows them down, giving them mass in the process. So without the Higgs Field none of us or the world would exist. There would just be particles wandering around in straight lines. I did understand a lot of the history, particularly of the LHC, Large Hadron Collider, in Switzerland. Carroll also admitted point blank that the basic reason for such studies is that it is "freaking awesome"! He admits cheerfully that he doesn't know if any tangible benefits will appear from this science, although he pointed out that the WWW came as a result of all these enormous number of physicists needing to be able to keep in touch with each other's work. He pretty much stated that if you can get any physicist to admit the truth, most would say that the awesomeness is why they got into the field to begin with and that they all live for that sense of awe and wonder of something new in the field. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn why the Higgs Boson has been in the news the last few years.

[Cassandra Kay Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grats everyone we found the Higgs! Our money wasn't wasted, and we will continue to learn from the data gathered at the LHC for a long time. The author takes a look at the pioneering work that went into the building of the accelerators and the scientific work of those leading up to this finding and what it will mean for us in the long term. I read this back to back with Lee Smolins work "the trouble with physic". I find this an interesting companion to this work and highly advise to read the two of them together, give it a go. Its an amazing human achievement and deserves a closer look at how we got here and what we plan on doing with the information we find in the future. The author does this fairly well, and the book was enjoyable.

[Chelsea Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been knee deep in popular physics books over the past year, and I am glad to find each new book bringing something fresh to the table. This book is especially good at introducing the experiments being run to find the Higgs (and other particles.) Also, this author had a lighter touch with the political side of funding Big Science than some others I've recently read, which ended up being more convincing to me. It's a nice complement to Lisa Randall's books and I was glad to find it did not repeat much of them. It might be a better place to start than some of the other popular treatments of this subject.

[Nicola Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely a book to blow your mind. Particle physics is such an interesting subject and says so much about the human endeavour into knowing our world and beyond. Scientific curiosity and development are never ending in this field and it’s definitely shown in the hunt for the Higgs.

This was a fab book, encompassing a wealth of knowledge in the search for the Higgs as well as it’s history, quantum mechanics and particle physics as a science. It was compelling to read and had me at times, completely in awe at how we even came to the conclusion of drawing up such amazing scientific achievements.

It was nice to read about some of the individual scientists involved at CERN as well as those who helped contribute to the discoveries and other science.

The chapters are nicely split up with information further split up into sub chapters which kept me engaged and far from bored throughout the book. It’s definitely one for those with a prior interest in this subject I would say, learning about particle physics isn’t for everyone, but for those who love learning about science, our universe and how the world works, it’s a book for you!

[Shoti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find cosmology a fascinating topic and got some exposure to particle physics during my cosmology-related prior reads. Articles caught my attention in 2012 about the breakthrough in the quest for the Higgs boson - also called in sensational newspapers the ‘God Particle’ but I did not get to the bottom of the story then. Now decided to pick up this book to gain a better understanding of this intriguing Higgs field / boson phenomenon.

All themes in the book relate to particle physics in a way but the breadth and deepness of science vary from chapter to chapter. Carroll thoroughly writes about the gripping story of constructing the Large Hadron Collider in France and Switzerland, the awe-inspiring collaboration of physicists from each corner of the world and also about the delicate dynamics between science and politics. To balance out such lightness in tone some other chapters are massively loaded with challenging-to-follow physical theorems where a layman person like me had better advance slowly and cautiously. I have learnt a lot from the book but also realized in the process that reading much about the Higgs boson makes me feel as if I got a pretty good buzz on... So, what’s the special trick of the Higgs field?

Elementary particles come in two types. Fermions, e.g. quarks and electrons, do take up place and serve as the basic building blocks for solid objects such as the human body, TV sets or planets. On the other hand, bosons do not take up any place but do carry forces creating fields. Particle physicists ordered all these elementary particles into a beautifully organized Standard Model. We well know four kinds of forces: 1) gravity, with the associated boson called graviton, 2) electromagnetism, with the corresponding boson called photon, 3) the strong nuclear force responsible for holding together the quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons within the nucleus, thanks to the force-carrying boson called gluon, and 4) the weak nuclear force with its own bosons creatively named as Z+, Z- and W. And here comes into the picture a fifth, mysterious and unique force which is the Higgs force with its own boson unsurprisingly called the Higgs boson. The Higgs field is all around us and, unlike any other field, it has a nonzero value in completely empty space too. The Higgs field influences on all other elementary particles and gives them their mass. The more the Higgs field interacts with a certain particle, the more mass it has. Massless particles such as photons within the sunlight are massless because they do not interact with the Higgs field at all. Physicists have been theorizing about the existence of the Higgs field since the 1960s but a theory remains a theory until its validity gets tested and proved through experiments. The Higgs boson turned out to be a stubbornly elusive particle. It’s rather heavy so it speedily decays into other particles. That created a huge technological and scientific challenge for the physicist on the hunt for it. They had to wait for the construction of the 9-billion-dollar Large Hadron Collider to be able to get hold of the Higgs boson for good in 2012.

Are there any immediately applicable technological applications out of having discovered the Higgs boson? No, nothing at all. However, as Carroll plausibly explains that’s not the point and such an outcome is not surprising either. When Faraday was asked about the usefulness of the new-fangled electricity or Hertz about his radio-wave-detecting device both of them gave a hesitant ‘I don’t know’ response. When Hertz was prodded further to suggest some practical application, he added, “Nothing, I guess.”. Discoveries reached through basic research do build into practical applications at a later stage. Or they don’t but they greatly help humanity gain a deeper understanding of the nature and the universe we are living in. Expectations from particle physicists are the very same with regards to the Higgs field. It may open new inroads into a more thorough understanding of dark matter, supersymmetry, extra dimensions.

In case you still don't believe that particle physics (not to mention the physicists) can be entertaining, please do yourself a favor and watch the ‘Large Hadron Rap’ on YouTube. Enjoy!

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Higgs boson. Key to understanding why mass exists and how atoms are possible, this elusive particle has finally been found after $9 billion, decades of effort, and the work of over six thousand researchers at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. In 2012, the history of a quest that began with the atomists of ancient Greece over 2,500 years ago reached a dramatic and historic turning point.

Caltech physicist and acclaimed writer Sean Carroll takes readers behind the scenes of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, to meet the theorists, engineers, and experimentalists, illuminate this landmark event, and explain the science of the Higgs boson, infamously known as "the God Particle."

What is so special about the Higgs boson? As Sean Carroll eloquently explains, without it we wouldn't understand how elementary particles could have mass at all. With it, we have found the final piece of the puzzle of ordinary matter: the atoms and forces underlying everything from DNA to global warming. Now a doorway is opening into the extraordinary: the mind-boggling world of dark matter and beyond. The Higgs discovery represents a triumph of the human passion for discovery, and the dawn of a new era in our exploration of the cosmos.

The Particle at the End of the Universe not only explains the importance of the Higgs boson but also the Large Hadron Collider -- the largest machine ever built. Such a project could not have happened without a certain amount of conniving, dealing, and occasional skullduggery -- and Sean Carroll explores it all. This is an irresistible story of how the human thirst for understanding led to the greatest scientific achievement of our time.

(taken from Cosmic Variance: http://preposterousuniverse.com/parti... )

[Tasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was one chapter I didn't understand a single paragraph of, and another that sometimes gave me the "I'm lost" feeling. Though overall there is plenty for the uninitiated science geek like me to sink their teeth into.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Reviewers Note: 3 stars for me personally because it felt more like a recap of things I've already learned, but when I think about it as a recommendation for a different type of audience, the less scientifically initiated, the rating goes up significantly to 4-5 stars. If the world of particle physics is completely new to you, this is a 5-star book and the place you should FIRST read about the Higgs. If you've got some physics training and are a blog-junky, read for the history of the project, which is excellent, and the where do we go from here parts.)

Instinct told me it was too early for a book on the discovery of the Higgs and its implications for the future of physics, but i threw caution to the wind because said book was written by my favorite living physicist. (From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time is pretty much my absolute favorite popular physics book of all time. If you're interested in fundamental questions and cosmology you can hardly do better.) The fact of the matter is we don't even know if what we've found at the LHC is THE Higgs that completes the Standard Model or if it's a sign of something new and different. Sure, it meshes well with a powerful theory that has so far worked remarkably well when we've tested other more easily accessible aspects, but more experimentation has to be done to be sure-sure.

To be absolutely fair to Dr. Carroll, he is completely forthright about the extent of our knowledge at this point and his approach is one of measured scientific reserve and optimism. He also makes an extremely good point about how difficult it is to convey how important the discovery is: the level of physics involved in discussing the implications of the discovery of the Higgs boson is such that it makes popular treatment incredibly challenging. Its certainly not impossible, and Carroll makes a noble effort, but there are certain chapters (like the on spontaneous symmetry breaking) that i imagine would be pure slogging for the uninitiated. The author even gives his blessing for the faint of heart to skip ahead on the more technical chapters to the more readily accessible parts of what it all means.

In general the structure and layout of the book is logical, if sometimes a bit repetitive (but then again some points definitely bear repeating). If the intended audience is primarily those who are complete laymen when it comes to the scientific and experimental process and modern physics, which I assume to be the case since most there are an awful lot of "mortals" wondering what this is all about since it's been plastered all over the news for the past 6 months, then it succeeds quite remarkably. Carroll is a great science communicator, on par in my opinion with Sagan and deGrasse Tyson. As I mentioned earlier, he has his work cut out for him. Explicating even the general principles of quantum field theory requires a paradigm shift from the perspective of an audience whose everyday experience teaches them that stuff is tangible, real and discreet rather than the view that matter and energy are composed of fields whose vibrations we merely perceive to be so. Nevertheless, here's what to expect:

1. What's the point of particle physics and why we care about the Higgs so much?
2. How do we go about finding particles like the Higgs? (How do accelerators work?)
3. A history of the LHC and accelerator discoveries.
4. A history and introduction to quantum field theory.
5. The discovery.
6. What comes next?

Of these topics, my scientifically inclined mind was most eager for #6, which was disappointingly short. Once again, this is no fault of Carroll's. We don't know really where this is going to lead. Can we use the Higgs to access the other 96% of our universe's "missing" mass? Can we use it to validate supersymmetry? Hopefully. We don't know...."only more experiments will tell us...." Which is pretty much what any reasonable person would expect as an answer at this short a juncture from the discovery itself.

I think the concluding remarks that seemed to indicate that the discovery of the Higgs is this generation's equivalent of the moon landing in terms of its impact on and ability to inspire children to pursue careers in science is highly optimistic. Sure, a key component of the survival of big science is the inspiration and wonder it generates, but you have to wonder if we've reached such an esoteric level that most people (whose tax dollars fund these projects) can simply no longer connect with the discovery. Sure there was a lot of media attention, but it also died off rather quickly and was (probably by necessity) more than a little superficial. In fact, it probably generated more confusion and misperceptions than conveying the true gravity of the discovery and was then just as easily forgotten. You have to wonder if the next generation of particle physicists, the five to seven year olds who still love science connected with the news at all. It's definitely not the same as gathering your family around the television to watch a man bounce around on the surface of another celestial body. The visual imagery is more visceral, the technical achievement more readily apparent to anybody who goes outside and looks up and for kids at least, it just seems a heck of a lot cooler. Not to say that the LHC is not cool - it most definitely is. Pictures of it are also really impressive, but explaining what it does and how it does it to a child is a much more difficult task than taking them outside on a clear night and pointing at the sky and saying "We're going to build rockets that go there."

And don't get me wrong, it needs to be made inspiring! We need to convey just how important these types of experiments are and Carroll has made a heroic effort in that direction as a first step. His accounting is honest, realistic and also imbued with that sense of awesomeness that we science geeks tend to feel when thinking about the universe - and it comes through in remarkably straightforward terms. One would hope his exhortation to his colleagues to be better communicators is taken with all due seriousness. We are in an age of "big science." The problems we face more and more often require huge investments of time and money, which is more and more difficult to sell when the gains are in the realm of pure reason to an audience that primarily wants "stuff" for their investments. Carroll puts it nicely when he says the low lying fruit has been picked clean in physics. This needs to be communicated to people with the same gravity as the excitement we typically try to convey when first selling projects for the next generation of physics. Again, this book does that extremely well.

Again, if you haven't been keeping up and have no idea what a boson is or think that dark matter and antimatter are purely the realm of science fiction, this is a great starting point for you. In fact, its probably the best game in town. (Be warned there's some heavy science necessary if you want to understand it more fully, but to see why it's important, you won't.) If you're a science blog junkie, then a lot of this stuff is old hat to you and the more forward looking sections may leave you hanging a bit.

Also, if you get the chance to attend any of Carroll's talks, do yourself a favor and get a ticket. The man is hilarious, knowledgeable and able to answer even complicated questions in ways that everyone can understand.

Oh, and if you're reading Dr. Carroll, maybe I'm crazy, but I think your artist forget his right hand rule when constructing the image on page 57. 8)

[Mengsen Zhang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have quite mixed feelings about this book. I would give 5 five stars for science communication, and 3 stars for too little physics to my taste. Re: science communication, one can feel that tremendous efforts were made to introduce complicated physical concepts to a general audience in intuitive ways. Most admirably, the author managed to convey, more accurately than a lot of scientists, what it means scientifically to "discover" Higgs Boson (or anything for that matter) -- what kind of theoretical labor and accuracy is required to predict an empirically verifiable distribution of particular events, how enormous an project it is to experimentally test such theoretical predictions, how important are the human factors. I especially appreciate that figures comparing theoretical predictions and empirical measurements of two photon events are provided. It gives the readers the liberty to judge on their own of the certainty of the scientific conclusions implied. Re: physics, a lot of analogies were used explain the working of Higgs and the Standard Model, which works very well locally but lacks coherence globally in explaining the relevant physical theories. Occasionally, difficult concepts were dished out without in-depth explanation as if it was very straight forward. For example, it was said that local symmetry gave rise to connection fields which in turn gave rise to forces of nature. But why? I cannot imagine how I would feel about this had I not taken any intro class on relevant math. Symmetries were invoked repeatedly through out the book, not accompanied with exposition of which symmetry and how. Maybe I'm just asking too much... I would still recommend it as a very nice science book.

[Jenna Leone]

DNF. I found the writing disorganized and rather repetitive (even though I only made it through ten percent). Just didn't keep my interest.

[Anh Phan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah yes—

It’s not a coincidence. Even though our quest to understand how nature works often leads to practical applications, that’s rarely what gets people interested in the first place. Passion for science derives from an aesthetic sensibility, not a practical one. We discover something new about the world, and that lets us better appreciate its beauty.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The possible discovery of the Higgs boson has prompted a flurry of books – in part because it’s significant (and because the Large Hadron Collider is a sexy bit of kit) and in part because the whole business of the Higgs field and its importance for the mass of particles is one of the most obscure and unlikely bits of physics in the current canon.

I have really mixed feelings about this entry in the genre from physicist Sean Carroll. It’s not because his book is too difficult to understand – it’s almost because it’s too easy. Generally speaking, there are three levels of good popular science. There’s TV news popular science, which cuts a lot of corners to make things totally simplistic, but manages to get the message across quickly. There’s the kind of book a good popular science writer will produce – highly approachable and readable, giving a lot more depth than the TV news and the best way to actually get an understanding of what’s going on for most of us, but still cutting some scientific corners. And there’s the kind of book a good scientist will write, which will probably go over your head the first time you read it, but if you persevere will give you the best illusion of knowing what the real science is about and getting some feel for the world of the scientist.

In his previous book From Eternity to Here, like Cox & Forshaw’s Why Does E=mc2, Carroll didn’t pull the punches. Much of the text was readable, but it may well have taken several attempts to get it to sink in. It was the perfect popular science book by an academic. Parts of this one, unfortunately verge on TV science. Some of it is so fluffy and approachable that it almost disappears into meaninglessness.

Luckily, this isn’t true of all the book. The early parts are worse. Oddly, he gets significantly better when talking about the building of the Large Hadron Collider than he does in his first attempts on the physics. And it is worth persevering as Carroll improves with his approach further in (best of all are a few appendices where he goes into more detail and we see the old, mind-bending Carroll emerging).

Some specific issues I had: it was really irritating that Carroll uses units like degrees Fahrenheit and miles rather than scientific (or European) units throughout. This is real poor TV science stuff. A lot of his science is what I’d call ‘plonking’ he states it as if it is absolute truth, not the current best theory. So, for instance, he speaks of dark matter as if it were certain fact (nary a mention of the rival MOND theory). And he says at one point ‘The world is really made out of fields. Sometimes the stuff of the universe looks like particles… but deep down it’s really fields.’

I have two problems with this. One is that one of my absolute heroes was Richard Feynman and he said of light ‘I want to emphasize that light does come in this form – particles.’ If particles are good enough for Feynman, they’re good enough for me. Secondly I think that what Carroll should be saying is ‘fields are the model that work best to describe what’s out there.’ In the end it’s a human devised model of something we can only inspect extremely indirectly. It is almost bound to be wrong – it’s just better than anything else we have at doing the job. (Yet.)

Perhaps the worst problem is the way he oversimplifies. Oddly this is a classic problem when a scientist is writing popular science (and why a good science writer is usually better) because he doesn’t know what the lay reader finds puzzling, so doesn’t bother to explain. His explanation of the application of symmetry to physics simply doesn’t fill in enough of the gaps. He says, for instance, that a mentos and diet coke experiment is symmetrical in all sorts of ways – you can point it in any direction, or translate it to any position and it works the same. Clearly this isn’t true. It wouldn’t work the same if the bottle was upside down, pointing straight at the ground, nor would it be the same if you translated it under the sea or into space. It’s a classic case of handwaving generalisation, missing out all the provisos and so making the explanation fail.

It’s certainly not a bad book – but I did prefer its rivals on a couple of counts. For a better heavy duty attempt at the physics, Frank Close’s The Infinity Puzzle wins (though that definitely is a ‘several reads to get it’ book). And for the best overall description of the search for the Higgs, combined with the most approachable but informative information on the Higgs field and the whole standard model of particle physics I’d recommend Higgs by Jim Baggott. But Sean Carroll’s book still did have a lot going for it and is still well worth considering.

Review first published on www.popularscience.co.uk and reproduced with permission

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love physics and general science. My problem is that I suck at math (English major) and even general science books dealing with quantum physics and particle physics can get super ... number-y.

This book was written not long after the Large Hadron Collider in Bern, Switzerland, announced that they had finally seen the evidence of the Higgs Boson particle that had been predicted 50 years earlier. It is the most plain-English explanation of the so-called "God particle" I've read to date. Sean Carroll has a teacher's touch, using easy-to-understand metaphors and analogies to explain just what's happening at what, so far, are the smallest things we can conceive of. 

Carroll starts out with a basic description of the Large Hadron Collider, mostly funded by nations within the European Union with a $2-billion contribution from the US when Congress failed to fund a similar program here. He talks about the challenges in constructing what is mostly a donut-shaped tube with immense magnets cooled to a temperature lower than what you'd find in deep space. That tube is used to speed particles to just a few hundredths of a percentage point short of the speed of light, allowing them to collide and break into smaller particles. The challenge is then to capture the image of little particles that can disappear in less than a trillionth of a second, and then to do a statistical analysis of thousands of these collisions to determine with certainty what they're seeing. (I'm trying to distill this to the bare minimum of what a whole book describes in brilliant detail.)

The author also gives a basic history of the physics discoveries leading to finding this particle, which is evidence of a field that exists throughout the universe. He discusses the reason it ended up being called "God particle", which made an easy hook for journalists to build interest in stories on the project. Best of all, perhaps, is he talks about how science develops an idea, tests it, and either dismisses it or begins to develop better and better evidence. Lastly he is clear that this is not the end of physics. There are still things we don't understand, other particles to discover (a new one was announced just a week before this is being written), and further challenges for science.

So along with being a very readable book on a complicated subject it is also an explanation and celebration of science and scientific curiosity in general. Were I richer, and convinced they could read, I'd send a copy to every member of Congress. While the scientific community is better at overlooking political map boundaries than most of us it still seems embarrassing that we're ceding a competitive scientific spirit to the rest of the world.