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Who Cares about Particle Physics?: Making Sense of the Higgs Boson, the Large Hadron Collider and CERN
CERN, the European Laboratory for particle physics, regularly makes the news. What kind of research happens at this international laboratory and how does it impact people's daily lives? Why is the discovery of the Higgs boson so important? Particle physics describes all matter found on Earth, in stars and all galaxies but it also tries to go beyond what is known to describe dark matter, a form of matter five times more prevalent than the known, regular matter. How dowe know this mysterious dark matter exists and is there a chance it will be discovered soon? About sixty countries contributed to the construction of the gigantic Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and its immense detectors. Dive in to discover how international teams of researchers work togetherto push scientific knowledge forward.Here is a book written for every person who wishes to learn a little more about particle physics, without requiring prior scientific knowledge. It starts from the basics to build a solid understanding of current research in particle physics. A good dose of curiosity is all one will need to discover a whole world that spans from the infinitesimally small and stretches to the infinitely large, and where imminent discoveries could mark the dawn of a huge revolution in the current conception of thematerial world.
267 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2015
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189 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 2, 2016
This could be a very short book, consisting only of the words 'I do' - but a more realistic title would be 'What has the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ever done for us?' Pauline Gagnon takes us on a tour of the standard model of particle physics, introduces the clumsily-titled Brout-Englert-Higgs field (most of us give in and accept it is more practically called the Higgs field, while recognising the other contributors), investigates the role of particle accelerators and takes us through the success with the Higgs boson, and the less successful search for dark matter and supersymmetrical particles.
The later part of the book is a bit of hotchpotch of the author's pet topics (or at least I'm guessing this, as they don't really flow from the first six or seven chapters) on the likes of a rather meandering collection of what research does for us from cancer cures to nuclear fusion (eventually), an examination of the management model used at CERN, a discussion of the (lack of) diversity in physics and bizarrely the role of Mileva Maric in Einstein's work, before reverting to topic of the book with a final chapter looking at possible future discoveries at CERN.
What makes this book worth celebrating for me is getting a really good feel for what the scientists working at the LHC actually do, how they interpret those messy-looking blasts of data, how so many scientists can work together (perhaps ascribing rather more efficiency to the process than is strictly accurate) and why this kind of research is valuable. This kept me interested and wanting to discover more.
I am giving this book four stars for its interesting insider content and particularly its insight into the way that the LHC is used that I have never seen elsewhere. But it does have some issues. Gagnon's attempt to speak down to the general reader sometimes feels a little condescending, not least in the decision to use stuffed toys to represent fundamental particles - it feels like she's trying too hard. There's also a classic 'expert's issue' in explaining why the particle discovered was thought to be a Higgs boson. She explains how the standard model was flawed and patched up with the idea of the Higgs etc. field. This implied there should be Higgs bosons, but they didn't know the mass. So how do they know that the new particle is a Higgs boson, rather than just something else that was missing from the standard model? There is no convincing answer given for this.
The writing style was also a little too much like being lectured - a barrage of facts, lacking much in the way of narrative structure. And an oddly obvious error had crept in: a table showing the behaviour of dark matter claimed it was not influenced by gravity, which is rather odd since this is the only way it can be detected. Oh, and the author falls into the error of trying to justify the expenditure on CERN because it gave us the web - a particularly lame argument.
However, these negatives are more than overcome by the content in the sense that we get far more than the typical basic tour and explanation of the LHC - this is really insightful material on how the LHC experiments are used and how they might be extended in the search for dark matter and the (increasingly unlikely) supersymmetric particles. Because of this, it's a book that's well worth reading if you have interest in this most fundamental of physical explorations.
The later part of the book is a bit of hotchpotch of the author's pet topics (or at least I'm guessing this, as they don't really flow from the first six or seven chapters) on the likes of a rather meandering collection of what research does for us from cancer cures to nuclear fusion (eventually), an examination of the management model used at CERN, a discussion of the (lack of) diversity in physics and bizarrely the role of Mileva Maric in Einstein's work, before reverting to topic of the book with a final chapter looking at possible future discoveries at CERN.
What makes this book worth celebrating for me is getting a really good feel for what the scientists working at the LHC actually do, how they interpret those messy-looking blasts of data, how so many scientists can work together (perhaps ascribing rather more efficiency to the process than is strictly accurate) and why this kind of research is valuable. This kept me interested and wanting to discover more.
I am giving this book four stars for its interesting insider content and particularly its insight into the way that the LHC is used that I have never seen elsewhere. But it does have some issues. Gagnon's attempt to speak down to the general reader sometimes feels a little condescending, not least in the decision to use stuffed toys to represent fundamental particles - it feels like she's trying too hard. There's also a classic 'expert's issue' in explaining why the particle discovered was thought to be a Higgs boson. She explains how the standard model was flawed and patched up with the idea of the Higgs etc. field. This implied there should be Higgs bosons, but they didn't know the mass. So how do they know that the new particle is a Higgs boson, rather than just something else that was missing from the standard model? There is no convincing answer given for this.
The writing style was also a little too much like being lectured - a barrage of facts, lacking much in the way of narrative structure. And an oddly obvious error had crept in: a table showing the behaviour of dark matter claimed it was not influenced by gravity, which is rather odd since this is the only way it can be detected. Oh, and the author falls into the error of trying to justify the expenditure on CERN because it gave us the web - a particularly lame argument.
However, these negatives are more than overcome by the content in the sense that we get far more than the typical basic tour and explanation of the LHC - this is really insightful material on how the LHC experiments are used and how they might be extended in the search for dark matter and the (increasingly unlikely) supersymmetric particles. Because of this, it's a book that's well worth reading if you have interest in this most fundamental of physical explorations.
March 27, 2023
Bon, c'est sans doute le meilleur titre que j'ai rencontré pour un ouvrage de vulgarisation scientifique et c’est ce qui m’a poussée à le lire en premier lieu.
Le contenu est clair, intéressant et fouillé, quoique manquant peut-être un peu de « punch » par rapport à d’autres ouvrages du même genre – je pense notamment à celui de Katie Mack, Comment tout finira (astrophysiquement parlant).
À noter que les derniers chapitres sortent de la vulgarisation scientifique « pure » pour évoquer des sujets connexes comme la place des femmes et des minorités dans les sciences dures : c’est très pertinent et assez peu abordé d’habitude, mais cela peut donner l’impression que l’ouvrage se disperse un peu.
Pas ma lecture préférée dans le domaine mais tout de même très à propos.
Le contenu est clair, intéressant et fouillé, quoique manquant peut-être un peu de « punch » par rapport à d’autres ouvrages du même genre – je pense notamment à celui de Katie Mack, Comment tout finira (astrophysiquement parlant).
À noter que les derniers chapitres sortent de la vulgarisation scientifique « pure » pour évoquer des sujets connexes comme la place des femmes et des minorités dans les sciences dures : c’est très pertinent et assez peu abordé d’habitude, mais cela peut donner l’impression que l’ouvrage se disperse un peu.
Pas ma lecture préférée dans le domaine mais tout de même très à propos.
September 23, 2019
The book was enlightening and made several formerly-obscure concepts clear to me, especially on the Higgs boson itself and the Brout-Englert-Higgs field (and mechanism). There were a few areas I would have improved upon, mostly around editing (the first section seemed 'tacked on' and did not flow as well as the later sections, and there were several places in the book where the annotations under the figures unnecessarily repeated the text).
In the 'what is CERN good for?' section, I lamented that while the author touched on all the major highlights (www and medical instruments/treatments), I would have appreciated some summaries or examples of actual projects or devices which CERN had provided over the years, given it has a technology transfer office and has been around for half a century as an organization.
For the 'what's next' section, I really expected more than just a summary of super-symmetry (SUSY) - for instance, what of quantum gravity?
Overall, a very worthwhile and interesting read. Some light editing would have catapulted it to the next level, like a valence electron. :-D
In the 'what is CERN good for?' section, I lamented that while the author touched on all the major highlights (www and medical instruments/treatments), I would have appreciated some summaries or examples of actual projects or devices which CERN had provided over the years, given it has a technology transfer office and has been around for half a century as an organization.
For the 'what's next' section, I really expected more than just a summary of super-symmetry (SUSY) - for instance, what of quantum gravity?
Overall, a very worthwhile and interesting read. Some light editing would have catapulted it to the next level, like a valence electron. :-D
September 24, 2019
The book was enlightening and made several formerly-obscure concepts clear to me, especially on the Higgs boson itself and the Brout-Englert-Higgs field (and mechanism). There were a few areas I would have improved upon, mostly around editing (the first section seemed 'tacked on' and did not flow as well as the later sections, and there were several places in the book where the annotations under the figures unnecessarily repeated the text).
In the 'what is CERN good for?' section, I lamented that while the author touched on all the major highlights (www and medical instruments/treatments), I would have appreciated some summaries or examples of actual projects or devices which CERN had provided over the years, given it has a technology transfer office and has been around for half a century as an organization.
For the 'what's next' section, I really expected more than just a summary of super-symmetry (SUSY) - for instance, what of quantum gravity?
Overall, a very worthwhile and interesting read. Some light editing would have catapulted it to the next level, like a valence electron. :-D
In the 'what is CERN good for?' section, I lamented that while the author touched on all the major highlights (www and medical instruments/treatments), I would have appreciated some summaries or examples of actual projects or devices which CERN had provided over the years, given it has a technology transfer office and has been around for half a century as an organization.
For the 'what's next' section, I really expected more than just a summary of super-symmetry (SUSY) - for instance, what of quantum gravity?
Overall, a very worthwhile and interesting read. Some light editing would have catapulted it to the next level, like a valence electron. :-D
July 26, 2019
The LHC is probably the most fascinating thing ever built by humans and this was a very good tour of it. I hope to tour it myself one of these days. For now, this book satiated my curiosity. I also found the appendix regarding Mileva Maric and Albert Einstein interesting. I think the view on that topic was a little slanted because I've seen and heard evidence from multiple sources. Unfortunately, nobody can claim to be an authority on that matter, besides dead people. It's still a fascinating topic though, and I appreciated another point of view.
August 10, 2019
This book is as much about how large groups ideally collaborate as it is about explaining particle physics. This felt like it mostly covered material I've read in other books on the subject. If this was my first time reading about the covered topics I feel it did a good job introducing all the key concepts. Overall a good but not great read.
April 30, 2021
لم أقرأ الكتاب كاملًا لأنه مبالغ جدًا في تبسيطه بالنسبة لمتخصص، لكنه جيد لمن هو غير متخصص أو مقبل على التخصص، الفصل الذي يتحدث فيه الكاتب عن الكواشف هو الأفضل بلا شك لما يحتوي عليه من رسومات ممتازة وتسلسل رائع.
May 3, 2019
Коллайдер, феменизм, суперсимметрия и другие темные материи.
May 24, 2022
This would be a nice summer reading for any undergrad physics student looking to take a course in particle physics.
September 28, 2024
I found it a bit challenging on assessing this book. The first part about particles was more basic than I expected, but if I look at it from the POV of someone just starting to learn about that topic, it was excellently done. The diagrams throughout were very helpful (including those sourced from Wikipedia). The LHC at CERN was a very large focus of the book, understandable since evidence of the Higgs Boson was determined there, they are in the lead of pursuing answers to other questions in particle physics and the author had a great deal of experience there. I learned a lot about some of the details of the facility. I also liked the projections of "what is next" and inclusion of how we get participation in science from people traditionally not included (e.g. women, people of color etc). There is a large untapped reservoir of ability that is being missed. As a biophysicist, I was pleased at the mention of physics in medicine (YAY). Particle physics is a truly fascinating field and I look forward to new discoveries and new questions in the future. This book is a great point to start.
March 17, 2015
La physicienne Québécoise parvient à dresser un portrait *assez* accessible de l'état de la physique moderne. Un minimum de connaissance dans le domaine aide toutefois à bien ingurgiter les concepts, le noms incongrues à première vue et surtout, les liens qui existent entre ces idées.
Tout en justifiant l'importance de continuer les recherches, elle dépeint avec clarté les défis des physiciens modernes. Elle met en lumière un grande réalité de la recherche: celle de gérer des quantités immenses de données. Nous comprenons notre univers grâce à la statistique.
Je suis particulièrement satisfait des explications quant au fonctionnement opérationnel du LHC et des ses détecteurs.
Tout en justifiant l'importance de continuer les recherches, elle dépeint avec clarté les défis des physiciens modernes. Elle met en lumière un grande réalité de la recherche: celle de gérer des quantités immenses de données. Nous comprenons notre univers grâce à la statistique.
Je suis particulièrement satisfait des explications quant au fonctionnement opérationnel du LHC et des ses détecteurs.
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September 5, 2019Çoğunuz Higgs bozonunu ve CERN'deki (Avrupa parçacık fiziği laboratuvarı) Büyük Hadron Çarpıştırıcısı'nı (BHÇ-LHC) duymuşsunuzdur. Ama bu kavramları iyice bilen gerçekten kaç kişi var? Bu kitap sizleri düşünerek, mümkün olduğu kadar basit bir dille ve uzman olmayan meraklı kişileri hedef alarak yazıldı. Higgs bozonunun ne olduğunu, aynı şekilde parçacık fiziğinin kilit konularını açık seçik ortaya koymak ve elden geldiğince çok insana erişmesini sağlamak amaçlandı. Dolayısıyla ilgilenen her okuyucu, parçacık fiziğinin hayranlık uyandırıcı dünyasını, matematik ve aşırı ayrıntılı açıklamalar konuyu karartmadan keşfedebilecek. İyi bir merak dozu yeterli olmalı; önceden ne lise düzeyi üstünde ileri matematik ne de fen kavramları gerekiyor.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews