The Big Test

books & arts The big test

Knocking on for a reconfiguration in 2012 it will achieve collaborations, which are now part of the Heaven’s Door: 14 TeV, hopefully high enough to reveal signs programme at CERN. For example, a new How Physics and of new physics. Within the experiment’s artist-in-residence scheme was recently Scientific Thinking sights are the Higgs boson, a predicted announced and a sculpture by British particle associated with the property of artist Anthony Gormley was unveiled in Illuminate the mass, and an explanation of why different the main building. The landscape designer Universe and the particles have the masses they do. Randall Charles Jencks is also constructing a series Modern World ably describes the basics of particle physics, of grassy landforms within the collider ring the Standard Model and the more speculative that will highlight the universal ideas of By Lisa Randall tenets of supersymmetry and string theory particle physics and cosmology. BODLEY HEAD: 2011. that the experiment may also eventually test. Randall has little to say though on 464 PP. £20 Pegging her explanations to the concept the future of particle physics once the of relative scale, she ventures from quarks to experiment runs its course. It is too soon to cosmic dimensions, with the final chapters know if CERN’s forthcoming discoveries will he 10 September 2008 was a day rounding up discoveries in cosmology. She ignite the public’s imagination sufficiently to remember for those involved in explains how scientists construct models that they stump up funds for an even bigger Tbuilding the Large Hadron Collider by building up a ‘Russian doll’ sequence of machine. Perhaps the arts projects will help (LHC) at CERN, Europe’s particle physics approximations for the behaviour of systems make the science seem more relevant to laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. As on various scales. The trick, she says, is to our lives, and books like Randall’s are doing theoretical physicist Lisa Randall relates be sure that your approximations on small their bit. But how should the particle physics in Knocking on Heaven’s Door, the day that scales hold no surprises at larger ones. Her community manage future research on such the vast machine was switched on marked clear descriptions of the scientific method a grand scale? the culmination of 25 years of painstaking will be illuminating for many non-scientists. Researchers could group their resources travails by particle physicists worldwide. Randall is palpably excited at the prospect and follow the ultra-collaborative European Emotions ran high in the CERN control of finally testing physics models with the model, embedded in a hierarchical room, Randall observed, as the researchers LHC. She also seems a little jealous that the management structure that, Randall notes became transfixed by two spots of light on Europeans have won the race to build such with admiration, has so far seen out funding a computer screen. The dots represented an instrument, after the plug was pulled on and political upheavals such as German opposing twin proton beams, which were the US’s Superconducting Super Collider. unification and the current financial crisis. revved up for the first time to loop around Blaming that on the failure of the American The US and Europe could combine forces the 27-km-long collider ring, set 100 metres particle physics community to persuade and include others to make it a global effort. below the Swiss–French countryside. politicians of the broader significance of But worldwide networks can have their own Millions of members of the public also their work, she aims to set records straight in challenges, as the complex negotiations over tuned in to watch the groundbreaking feat. this book by trumpeting the significance of the fusion project ITER illustrate. Since then, the LHC has — despite a hiatus fundamental research. Or are our giant-scale particle-smashing due to a technical hiccup — worked well, Clearly defensive about the public days nearing their end? The LHC, like the producing large amounts of data that keep perception of scientists, Randall goes beyond Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s other particle physicists on the edges of their seats. physics to tackle contentious topics like great observatories, is a relic of the 1980s Although she says she is not prone religion, risk and creativity. She is logical, when cold-war attitudes fostered expensive to superlatives, Randall has no trouble rational and inclusive in her assessments, machine building. As NASA did in the wheeling them out when describing the but the results of her digressions can be 1990s with its smaller, faster, cheaper ethos, LHC. Packets of billions of protons orbit unsurprising. Although an atheist, she should we now invest money in narrower the LHC ring 11,000 times a second, held respects people of faith, but argues for experiments such as the particle astrophysics in place by 1,232 giant magnets, each the importance of evidence in belief; she projects that target dark-matter searches or 15-metres long, weighing 30 tons and recognizes that risk is difficult to ascertain detect cosmic rays? Or should we relax and costing €700,000. The superconducting coils in complex cases such as climate change or spend more time investigating new theories within them contain 1,200 tons of niobium– economics, yet is relaxed about the quantum and analysing the data we have? titanium wire, which is narrower than a mechanical threat of rogue black holes that Irrespective, Knocking on Heaven’s Door human hair, but would be long enough if could possibly be produced by the LHC. She is an open and erudite answer to why we are unravelled to encircle the orbit of Mars. sees creativity as the result of hard work and pursuing fundamental physics research. It will Cooled to just 1.9 K, the coils are colder an open mind. enlighten the public and hopefully reach some than outer space (the cosmic microwave Randall touches on concepts shared of those difficult-to-impress politicians. As background has a temperature of 2.7 K). between art and science: the sublime, the recession eases, perhaps LHC’s scientific With attention to detail and in elegant symmetry and the search for beauty and legacy will be the tonic society needs. ❐ and easy prose, Randall explains how the elegance. She wrote an opera libretto in LHC accelerates packets of protons to 2009 about multiple dimensions, so it would REVIEWED BY JOANNE BAKER huge energies. The machine has already have been interesting to hear more about Joanne Baker is Acting Chief Commissioning Editor reached 7 TeV; after closing temporarily her thoughts on the growth of science–art of Nature and a former cosmologist.

832 NATURE PHYSICS | VOL 7 | NOVEMBER 2011 | www.nature.com/naturephysics