Collider; the search for the world's smallest particles.

9780470286203

Collider; the search for the world's smallest particles.

Halpern, Paul.

John Wiley & Sons

2009

260 pages

$27.95

Hardcover

QC787

Halpern (physics and mathematics, U. of the Sciences, Philadelphia) has a good track record for explaining complex science to general readers, most notably in his What's Science Ever Done for Us?. Here he narrows his focus to subatomic particles, and the subparticles that comprise them, and so on and so on down to the most fundamental nugget of existence. The particles are described in the context of the theoretical work that predicted them, and empirical research--particularly the technology--that discovered them. His topics include the quest for a theory of everything, Rutherford's scattering experiments, the first accelerators, the Tevatron and the Super Proton Synchrotron, building the Large Hadron Collider, looking for portals to higher dimensions, and microscopic black holes.

([c]2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)