https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Particle:_If_the_Universe_Is_the_Answer,_What_Is_the_Question%3F
The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer,
What Is the Question?
From Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia
The God Particle
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.jpg)
First edition cover
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Author
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Leon M. Lederman,
with Dick Teresi
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Country
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United States
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Language
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English
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Subject
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Genre
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Non-fiction
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Publisher
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Publication date
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1993
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Media type
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0-385-31211-3 (Original
hardcover)
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The God Particle: If the Universe Is the
Answer, What Is the Question? is a 1993 popular science book by Nobel Prize-winningphysicist Leon M. Lederman and science writer Dick Teresi.
The book provides a brief history of particle physics,
starting with the Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Democritus, and
continuing through Isaac Newton, Roger J. Boscovich, Michael Faraday, and Ernest Rutherford and quantum physics in the 20th century.[1][2][3][4]
This boson is so central
to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the
structure of matter, yet so elusive, that I have given it a nickname: the God
Particle. Why God Particle? Two reasons. One, the publisher wouldn't let us
call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title,
given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing. And two, there is a
connection, of sorts, to another book, a much older one...
Contents
Fermilab director and subsequent Nobel physics prize winner Leon M. Lederman was a very prominent
early supporter – some sources say the architect[6] or proposer[7] – of the Superconducting Super Collider project, which was
endorsed around 1983, and was a major proponent and advocate throughout its
lifetime.[8][9] Lederman wrote his 1993 popular science book – which sought to
promote awareness of the significance of such a project – in the context of the
project's last years and the changing political climate of the 1990s.[10] The increasingly moribund
project was finally shelved that same year after some $2 billion of
expenditure.[6] The proximate causes of
the closure were the rising US budget deficit,
rising projected costs of the project, and the cessation of theCold War which reduced the
perceived political pressure within the United States to undertake and complete
high profile megaprojects of this kind.
A simulated event at the Large Hadron Collider. This simulation depicts the decay
of a Higgs particle following a collision of two protons in the CMS experiment
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Chapter 1: The Invisible Soccer Ball: This chapter uses a
metaphor of a soccer game with an invisible ball to depict the process by which
the existence of particles are deduced.[11] Also, in this chapter Dr.
Lederman gives a brief background story of what led him to particle physics.[12]
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Chapter 2: The First Particle Physicist: In a fictional dream,
Dr. Lederman meets Democritus, an
ancient Greek philosopher who lived during the Classical Greek Civilization, and has a
conversation (a Socratic dialogue)
with him.[13]
·
Chapter 3: Looking For The Atom: The
Mechanics:
This chapter covers Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler andIsaac Newton.[14]
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Chapter 4: Still Looking for the Atom:
Chemists and Electricians: This chapter covers physicists from the
18th century onward including J.J. Thomson, John Dalton, and Dmitri Mendeleev (1834–1907).[15]
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Chapter 5: The Naked Atom: This chapter paints a
picture of the shift from classical physics to the birth and development of
quantum mechanics.[16]
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Chapter 6: Accelerators: They Smash Atoms,
Don’t They?:
Covers the development of particle
accelerators.[17]
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Chapter 7: A-tom!: The book uses the word
"A-tom" to refer to Democritus' fundamental, uncuttable particle.
This chapter covers the discovery of the fundamental
particles of the Standard Model.[18]
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Chapter 8: The God Particle At Last: Covers spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs boson.[19]
·
Chapter 9: Inner Space, Outer Space, and
the Time Before Time: Looks at astrophysics and describes the
evidence for the big bang.[20]
