![]() ![]() Why is the sky blue? Why do things fall down? But, he continues, that innate curiosity is beaten out of us by years of schooling and the pressures of real life. When you're 6 years old, everyone asks these kinds questions, Carroll writes. With wit and honesty, Carroll conveys why science's fundamental questions matter so much to human culture. This book is more than a tour of big ideas and big events in physics. It's also a tale of money, politics and jealousy. As Carroll puts it, the search for the Higgs is not just a story of subatomic particles and esoteric ideas. The book succeeds by combining lucid descriptions of the triumphant physics behind the Higgs with a very human story of the search itself. The Higgs is really the capstone of an ornate pyramid of abstract ideas physicists have been building for decades as they struggle to answer a simple question: what is matter? Carroll gives us a grand story that begins with the Greeks 2,500 years ago and ends with a 12,500-ton atom smasher in Geneva last summer when the Higgs was discovered. Unfortunately, that bold statement actually hides most of the real story. In a sense, it's the Higgs that makes mass. The Higgs boson is essentially the fundamental particle which gives all other fundamental particles the very fundamental property we call mass. Adam Frank says it's filled with insight, great storytelling and a whole lot of Higgs.ĪDAM FRANK, BYLINE: Sean Carroll's task is not an easy one. ![]() It's "The Particle at the End of the Universe" by physicist and science blogger Sean Carroll. If you're the kind of person who loves to ponder life's fundamental question but wouldn't know Higgs boson if it bought you flowers, reviewer Adam Frank says he has the book for you. ![]()
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