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CERN Courier December 2013 CERN Courier December 2013 Bookshelf Bookshelf inappropriate application of physical laws to the universe a “cosmological fallacy”. His reasoning draws attention to the distinction Time Reborn: From the Crisis of Physics to between physics-in-a-box and cosmology. Festive Bookshelf the Future of the Universe “The universe is an entity different in kind Once again, it will soon be time for many of By Lee Smolin from any of its parts.” us to take a well-earned break with friends Allen Lane Smolin is a strong proponent of Leibnitz and family, probably after a few hectic hours Hardback: £20 and the principle of suffi cient reason, searching for presents in this festive season. E-book: £11.99 which states that if there is more than one To help with the shopping – whether for others This is a fascinating and thought-provoking possibility for things to be as they are, then or for yourself – this end-of-year Bookshelf book about the nature of time and its role there must be a suffi cient reason for the presents some suggestions for more relaxed in explaining the universe. Smolin is an actual outcome being the case. He uses this reading. original thinker who is unafraid to challenge to great effect in defi ning his principles established orthodoxy. He argues that for a new cosmology. in particular, “there modern attempts to understand the universe should be nothing in the universe that acts Madam Wu Chien-Shiung: The First Lady of have reached an impasse as a result of the on other things without itself being acted Physics Research extraction of time from our concept of reality. upon.” This expresses the philosophy By Chiang Tsai-Chien (translated by Wong The book is presented in two parts. The of relationism, where every entity in the Tang-Fong) fi rst offers an historical and philosophical universe evolves dynamically, including World Scientifi c account of how we have arrived at a timeless the physical laws governing the universe. Hardback: £65 view of the world. The second develops These laws then “become explicable Paperback: £32 ideas for a new approach to physics, only when they participate in the dance E-book: £24 which incorporates time as a central and of change and mutual infl uence that The discovery of parity non-conservation fundamental theme. While both parts are makes the world a whole”. A consequence was honoured with a nobel Prize in interesting and relevant, physicists might of relationism, Smolin argues, is that Physics awarded to chen-ning Yang fi nd it more satisfying to read the second symmetries and conservation laws can only and Tsung-Dao Lee who raised the “fi rsts”, such as the fi rst recipient of the part fi rst. There is also an epilogue where be approximations to reality. Springer story of Houtermans. Amaldi began to write “question of parity conservation in weak Wolf prize and the fi rst female president of Smolin discusses some of the implications Smolin is keen to emphasize a new Paperback: £44.99 €52.70 $49.95 about Houtermans but died in 1989. Twenty interactions” in 1956 (Phys. Rev. 104 the American Physical Society. of redefi ning our concept of time and reality approach to a theory of the universe that is E-book: £35.99 €41.64 $39.95 years later, edoardo Amaldi’s son ugo gave 254). Originally the preprint contained a The biography tells the exciting story of and how we might meet the challenges of the not constrained by the newtonian paradigm. Before visiting a university or physics his father’s unpublished manuscript to the question mark – “is parity conserved in a young woman who left the rural china future, such as climate change and market He attempts to provide a framework for a laboratory, most people imagine today’s Laboratory for High energy Physics at the weak interactions?” – but the editors of vividly described in the novels of Pearl economics. Finally, he considers the nature new theory, insisting that it must be able to physicists as peaceful men or women university of Bern, where Fritz had done Physical Review at that time discouraged S Buck and became one of the recognized of consciousness. provide falsifi able predictions. In this sense wearing white lab coats and dealing with much to initiate research on particle physics. question marks in the titles of regular authorities in the physics of β decay. Wu Smolin begins by illustrating, with he is less speculative than those who opt for a test tubes, clouds of coloured smoke and i share the fascination of the editors when articles. The crucial question mark was joined the Manhattan Project and later the simple example of projectile motion, multiverse of universes that are not causally mathematical equations. Although the they describe how grateful they were to have eliminated forever the same year by the worked on several other topics, ranging how time can be excluded from our connected to our own. He proposes the description would be more appropriate the opportunity to “meet two outstanding valiant effort of chien-Shiung Wu and her from the Mossbauer effect to exotic understanding of a physical system by existence of many universes but with causal for ancient alchemists rather than modern physicists” – Fritz and edoardo. collaborators – ernest Ambler, raymond atoms. However, her main contributions using mathematical constructs. The role of connections, which in principle allow their physicists, one word should still stand out – The result is a detailed description of both Hayward, Dale Hoppes and ralph Hudson. remain connected to weak interactions. in mathematics is to make a physical system existence to be detected. A possible candidate peaceful. However, there was a time when the life of Houtermans and the lives of other They conducted a memorable experiment collaboration with her group in columbia abstract, rendering it eternal and timeless. for the new theory is cosmological natural physicists were investigating dangerous friends of Amaldi. it is a beautiful description at the national Bureau of Standards and she also tested the conserved vector-current Here Smolin gives an excellent account of selection – the subject of his earlier book radiation, fi ssile nuclei and particles to of europe and science during the years the results were published in the fi rst few hypothesis and the universality of Fermi the history of the copernican revolution, The Life of the Cosmos – in which universes trigger a nuclear-reaction chain. These were before, during and after the Second World months of 1957 (Phys. Rev. 105 1413). interaction proposed by richard Feynman Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei. His reproduce through the creation of new also the times when Europe was a battlefi eld War. The words Amaldi uses – which are well The concept of their experiment was and Murray Gell-Mann – a discovery unique perspective gives new insight into universes within black holes. The presence of and scientifi c results were regarded as edited – are not those of a storyteller. instead, remarkably simple: take a β-decay source that was essential for the subsequent how each world view might have developed a large number of black holes in a universe is potential material for spies and the tellers he provides a detailed – almost scientifi c – (cobalt-60) and magnetize it with a circular development of the Standard Model of and persisted. At each stage the concept a measure of its fi tness in evolutionary terms. of spy stories. in those days, almost every report of this almost unknown physicist. current fl owing fi rst in one direction and electroweak interactions. of time becomes increasingly obsolete, The analogy with Darwinian evolution raises scientist could have made a good subject for Although Houtermans is an interesting then in the opposite sense, so that the initial Wu was above all a scientist who did culminating in the determinism of the the fascinating possibility of novel outcomes, writers and Hollywood. subject, more interesting to me are the states are the mirror images of each other. not like much exposure and dramatic newtonian paradigm. relativity is no less similar to the emergence of new species Friedrich “Fritz” Houtermans is chapters where Amaldi explains the The β decays of the mirror-symmetric headlines. She also had a wonderful deterministic, leading us to a timeless “block through natural selection. no exception. indeed, his private and “making of” the book and his research initial states turned out to be non-mirror- family and various interests, including the universe” picture where reality is the whole This book is great for providing numerous professional lives make a good subject for into accurate information sources about its symmetric. immediately afterwards, two rights of women in science. After leaving history of the universe at once. thought-provoking ideas. The reader does a book. However, in my opinion, the most subject. i think that soon i will be looking for other groups published similar evidence for Shanghai in 1936, she was not allowed in what he calls “doing physics in a box”, not have to agree with all of them to be intriguing aspect of this book is the author an equivalent book about Amaldi’s life. parity non-conservation – richard Garwin, back into mainland china for 37 years Smolin examines the applicability of the stimulated into pondering the nature of – edoardo Amaldi – and the reason why ● Antonella Del Rosso, CERN. Leon Lederman and Marcel Weinrich in and so never again saw family members newtonian paradigm to cosmology. A time. unsettling and controversial in places, he decided to write about Fritz, a man who columbia university and Jerome Friedman who had died in the meantime. The physical system can never be isolated from it offers a much needed re-examination of was married four times, spent a few years in Allegro Neutrino ou L’attrape-temps and Valentine Telegdi in chicago. cultural revolution threatened chinese external infl uences, so the solutions are an some of our most cherished views. Lubianka and other prisons and published De François Vannucci Weak interactions are at the heart of this science but did not succeed. A number of approximation to reality. The approximation ● Theresa Harrison, Warwick University. several important physics results along the L’Harmattan interesting biography. of course, Wu was remarkable chinese scientists, including can be removed by taking the universe as way. Amaldi had seen L’Aveu – the fi lm Broché: €27 not the fi rst lady working in physics – other Wu, contributed enormously to the current a whole into consideration but such a step The Adventurous Life of Friedrich Georg by costa Gravas about Artur London, the Paris, dans les années 1950. Michel a 11 remarkable women preceded her in the success of the standard electroweak theory. cannot be justifi ed because the Newtonian Houtermans, Physicist (1903–1966) czechoslovakian communist minister falsely ans et voit des bulles, ce dont il est très fi er. path to great discoveries. However, as the ● Massimo Giovannini, CERN and INFN paradigm necessarily applies to a system By Edoardo Amaldi (Saverio Braccini, Antonio arrested and tried for treason and espionage Terme résolument non scientifi que, le mot author argues, she was a person of many Milan-Bicocca. that is part of a whole. Smolin calls the Ereditato and Paola Scampoli eds.) – and was struck by similarities with the « bulle » désigne pour le narrateur – Michel

42 43 cerncourier www. V o l u m e 5 3 N u m b e r 1 0 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 CERN Courier December 2013 CERN Courier December 2013 Bookshelf Bookshelf

at cern (using the clumsy wording “cMS Gibbs does not believe in coincidences – it’s not all, of the experiments described and ATLAS each reported a sigma close to enshrined in his rule number 39: “There is are optical, involving a small number fi ve”), Bernstein criticizes the experimenters no such thing as a coincidence.” More than of photons (particles of light). Starting at cern for “claiming victory”. “There was a century earlier, the same belief seems to with experiments on the wave–particle so much pressure to discover this particle that have inspired Arthur conan Doyle in his duality of electrons, the authors proceed it makes me a bit queasy,” he says. He then creation of probably the best known pioneer to experiments on the particle nature implies that his uneasiness will not disappear of crime-scene investigation – Sherlock of light and single-photon interference, “until there are more data from the LHc” but Holmes. conan Doyle was later to explain delayed-choice experiments and he forgets to explain what he thinks the “more that detective stories he had read were interaction-free detection. The book then data” should show to clarify his doubts. “nonsense...because for getting the solution to moves on to experiments involving the Another example is the much-too-brief the mystery the authors always depended on interference of two photons, quantum mentioning of dark energy, quickly dismissed some coincidence”. instead, the key to solving entanglement and Bell’s Theorem, quantum with the words “its origin is unclear”. The the cases in the Sherlock Holmes stories was teleportation, large-scale quantum effects reader is left disappointed that these thoughts the central character’s knowledge of science and the divide between the classical and are not developed further. and his powers of deduction. quantum worlds, addressing the question as it seems that Bernstein had a hard time The stories became hugely popular. Fans to whether or not there is such a divide. trying to fi nd a suitable balance between would eagerly await the next edition of The explaining things accurately and staying Strand Magazine to read the latest mystery Love, Literature and the Quantum Atom: within the reach of the “lay reader”. He and refused to let Holmes die – famously, Niels Bohr’s 1913 Trilogy Revisited certainly knows, for instance, that the conan Doyle had to bring the detective By Finn Aaserud and John L Heilbron expression “the electron temperature” back from near death at the reichenbach Oxford University Press is meaningless – single particles have Falls. indeed, Holmes continues to live on in Hardback: £35 energies not temperatures. And why does peoples’ imaginations, long after his creator niels Bohr ranks with Albert he systematically quote the masses of the died. The attraction continues today, as einstein among the physicists of particles with respect to “the mass of the Holmes appears on TV and cinema screens the 20th century. He rose to this proton” instead of introducing the mass unit in many different incarnations and has been status through his invention of – « une myriade de points lumineux dansant ou, comme les décrit encore le narrateur, GeV? i wonder if such decisions are imposed brought into the 21st century, for example by o’Brien comes down between the two, the quantum theory of the atom dans tous les sens », points lumineux qui « notre carburant spirituel ». ce qui explique by the publishers of “popular science books”, the popular actor Benedict cumberbatch. ranking Holmes the chemist as “eccentric”. and his leadership in its defence se révèleront être, au fi l des pages, des d’ailleurs que les jeunes en émettent plus que together with the rule of strictly avoiding in The Scientifi c Sherlock Holmes, James of course, Holmes was a character in a and development. He also ranks with einstein « neutrinos ». nous y voilà. les vieux, et que ceux qui n’en émettent plus any equations (except e = mc2). To me, it o’Brien, an emeritus professor of chemistry, book – although it is sometimes easy to fall in his humanism and sense of responsibility Vous l’aurez compris, bien qu’écrit par sont morts. cQFD. sounds more confusing. it also seems that the puts forward the case that the scientifi c into thinking about Holmes as a real person, to his science and the society that enabled him un physicien des particules spécialisé en Au fi nal, ce livre est un long voyage dans author became confused, judging from the element played an important part in the as o’Brien and his many sources often to create it. This book presents unpublished physique des neutrinos, ce livre est un la tête d’un gamin de 11 ans, à la rencontre de statement that Λ0 is “a neutral particle about success of the stories. His book is essentially seem to do. Instead, the stories refl ect the excerpts from extensive correspondence roman. L’objectif n’étant pas de vous en ses idées farfelues, de ses expérimentations et half as massive as the proton”. Hopefully a pocket guide to the science in Holmes’s knowledge of conan Doyle, who had trained between Bohr and his immediate family, apprendre des kilomètres sur ces fameux déductions scientifi ques, de ses découvertes the reader will understand that this is a adventures – short enough to read quickly as a doctor. The fascination is that conan using it to describe and analyse the neutrinos, mais de vous embarquer dans une triomphantes et de ses confrontations au “misprint” when seeing, in the next sentence, but packed full of facts and quotations from Doyle was so up-to-date on the application of psychological and cultural background to his histoire dont ils sont les protagonistes. et si monde des adultes. certains passages sont that Λ0 decays into π– and a proton. unless Conan Doyle’s 60 stories about the maverick forensic science – and that fi ctionalizations invention. The book also contains a reprinting l’histoire est contée par un jeune narrateur franchement réjouissants, et l’on fi nit par se the reader stopped believing in energy detective. Just like the stories themselves, centred on forensic science continue to draw of the three papers of 1913 – the Trilogy – in passionné de physique, il n’en reste pas prendre d’affection pour le jeune Michel, qui conservation after reading about the decays the book becomes compulsive reading large audiences in many countries, where which Bohr worked out the provisional basis moins qu’il s’agit d’un enfant, et non pas garde précieusement au fond de sa poche, of a Higgs boson “into a W+ and a W– or two as o’Brien looks in detail at how Holmes they can see modern variants on Holmes on of a quantum theory of the atom. (encore) d’un physicien des particules. un marron, une bille et une boîte pleine de Z0s”. The “lay reader” would appreciate some used science in his investigations. Most TV on almost any night of the week. L’intrigue, si je puis donner à l’histoire neutrinos. discussion on how these “most interesting fascinating is the chapter on forensic science, ● Christine Sutton, CERN. Under the Spell of Landau: When cette connotation très romanesque, ● Anaïs Schaeffer, CERN. decays” can occur, despite a mass for the from fi ngerprints and footprints to the use of Theoretical Physics was Shaping Destinies est somme toute assez simple. Michel, Higgs boson less than twice the masses of the dogs. What makes this especially intriguing Books received By Mikhail Shifman (ed.) écolier plutôt mauvais en maths mais bon A Palette of Particles W or Z, something that is nicely addressed is the way that the author matches the work World Scientifi c en imagination, vit dans un minuscule By Jeremy Bernstein by Lisa randall in her short book Higgs of Holmes with real forensic science and The Quantum Divide: Why Schrödinger’s Hardback: £82 appartement parisien avec ses parents. il Harvard University Press Discovery: The Power of Empty Space some famous cases. The development of the Cat is Either Dead or Alive Paperback: £45 va à l’école à pied, troue ses chaussettes, Hardback: £14.95 €17.10 $18.95 (CERN Courier December 2012 p37). Automated Fingerprint Identifi cation System By Christopher C Gerry and Kimberley M Bruno E-book: £34 accompagne sa mère au marché le jeudi et This book presents a somewhat personal tour if i were to recommend a book giving a (AFiS – well known to modern fans of crime Oxford University Press This invaluable collection à la messe le dimanche, passe ses vacances through the zoo of more-or-less elementary popular account of particle physics, a few fi ction), as well as the use of handwriting in Hardback: £25 of memoirs and reviews on d’été à la campagne, collectionne les particles discovered in the past hundred years other books would come to mind fi rst, but apprehending the new York Zodiac Killer Aimed at undergraduate scientifi c activities of the most timbres, adore les truffes au chocolat, et or so. in general, the content should be well this one has the advantage of (probably) and typewritten letters in convicting the physics students and anyone prominent theoretical physicists se délecte des histoires de science de son known to most people who are interested being the smallest and fastest to read – and it unabomber, are some examples. else who wants to grasp the belonging to the Landau School oncle Albert, fonctionnaire tire-au-fl anc et in this topic, except for a few original fi ts in most pockets. o’Brien also looks closely at Holmes’s essential issues of quantum — Landau, Migdal, Zeldovich, lecteur assidu de magazines de vulgarisation “anecdotes” that Bernstein – a physicist – ● Carlos Lourenço, CERN. deep interest in chemistry, before covering physics, the authors use a Smorodinsky, Ter-Martirosyan, Kirzhnits, scientifi que. Mais ce qui anime surtout experienced fi rst hand. Surprisingly, such other sciences. Here he defends Holmes selection of key experiments Gribov, Larkin and Anselm — is published Michel, moins son histoire, c’est cette personal accounts and opinions are limited The Scientifi c Sherlock Holmes: Cracking against the criticisms of isaac Asimov performed during the past 30 years to in English for the fi rst time. The main goal is étrange capacité à voir des neutrinos. both in number and impact. occasionally the the Case with Science & Forensics – the well-known chemist, author and discuss the counter-intuitive phenomena of to acquaint readers with the life and work of Mais ne vous méprenez pas, les neutrinos author seems tempted to say something but By James O’Brien “Sherlockian scholar”. in Asimov’s view, the quantum world that defy explanation outstanding Soviet physicists who, to a large de Michel sont loin de coller à l’idée que then avoids developing the arguments further, Oxford University Press Holmes was a “blundering chemist”, in terms of “common sense” and provide extent, shaped theoretical physics in the l’on s’en fait au cern. Pour Michel, ce so that the reader ends up not quite knowing Hardback: £18.99 $29.95 while the chronicler Dr Watson describes the corresponding quantum mechanical period 1950–1970. Many intriguing details ne sont en effet ni plus ni moins que les what the message is. For instance, after Devotees of the criminal-investigation TV Holmes’s knowledge of chemistry as explanations with only an elementary brought together here were unknown beyond constituants de l’âme des êtres vivants, reporting that a Higgs boson was discovered drama NCIS will know that Special Agent “profound”. After analysing several stories, use of associated formalism. Most, but the iron curtain of those years.

44 45 cerncourier www. V o l u m e 5 3 N u m b e r 1 0 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 CERN Courier December 2013 CERN Courier December 2013 Bookshelf Bookshelf inappropriate application of physical laws to the universe a “cosmological fallacy”. His reasoning draws attention to the distinction Time Reborn: From the Crisis of Physics to between physics-in-a-box and cosmology. Festive Bookshelf the Future of the Universe “The universe is an entity different in kind Once again, it will soon be time for many of By Lee Smolin from any of its parts.” us to take a well-earned break with friends Allen Lane Smolin is a strong proponent of Leibnitz and family, probably after a few hectic hours Hardback: £20 and the principle of suffi cient reason, searching for presents in this festive season. E-book: £11.99 which states that if there is more than one To help with the shopping – whether for others This is a fascinating and thought-provoking possibility for things to be as they are, then or for yourself – this end-of-year Bookshelf book about the nature of time and its role there must be a suffi cient reason for the presents some suggestions for more relaxed in explaining the universe. Smolin is an actual outcome being the case. He uses this reading. original thinker who is unafraid to challenge to great effect in defi ning his principles established orthodoxy. He argues that for a new cosmology. in particular, “there modern attempts to understand the universe should be nothing in the universe that acts Madam Wu Chien-Shiung: The First Lady of have reached an impasse as a result of the on other things without itself being acted Physics Research extraction of time from our concept of reality. upon.” This expresses the philosophy By Chiang Tsai-Chien (translated by Wong The book is presented in two parts. The of relationism, where every entity in the Tang-Fong) fi rst offers an historical and philosophical universe evolves dynamically, including World Scientifi c account of how we have arrived at a timeless the physical laws governing the universe. Hardback: £65 view of the world. The second develops These laws then “become explicable Paperback: £32 ideas for a new approach to physics, only when they participate in the dance E-book: £24 which incorporates time as a central and of change and mutual infl uence that The discovery of parity non-conservation fundamental theme. While both parts are makes the world a whole”. A consequence was honoured with a nobel Prize in interesting and relevant, physicists might of relationism, Smolin argues, is that Physics awarded to chen-ning Yang fi nd it more satisfying to read the second symmetries and conservation laws can only and Tsung-Dao Lee who raised the “fi rsts”, such as the fi rst recipient of the part fi rst. There is also an epilogue where be approximations to reality. Springer story of Houtermans. Amaldi began to write “question of parity conservation in weak Wolf prize and the fi rst female president of Smolin discusses some of the implications Smolin is keen to emphasize a new Paperback: £44.99 €52.70 $49.95 about Houtermans but died in 1989. Twenty interactions” in 1956 (Phys. Rev. 104 the American Physical Society. of redefi ning our concept of time and reality approach to a theory of the universe that is E-book: £35.99 €41.64 $39.95 years later, edoardo Amaldi’s son ugo gave 254). Originally the preprint contained a The biography tells the exciting story of and how we might meet the challenges of the not constrained by the newtonian paradigm. Before visiting a university or physics his father’s unpublished manuscript to the question mark – “is parity conserved in a young woman who left the rural china future, such as climate change and market He attempts to provide a framework for a laboratory, most people imagine today’s Laboratory for High energy Physics at the weak interactions?” – but the editors of vividly described in the novels of Pearl economics. Finally, he considers the nature new theory, insisting that it must be able to physicists as peaceful men or women university of Bern, where Fritz had done Physical Review at that time discouraged S Buck and became one of the recognized of consciousness. provide falsifi able predictions. In this sense wearing white lab coats and dealing with much to initiate research on particle physics. question marks in the titles of regular authorities in the physics of β decay. Wu Smolin begins by illustrating, with he is less speculative than those who opt for a test tubes, clouds of coloured smoke and i share the fascination of the editors when articles. The crucial question mark was joined the Manhattan Project and later the simple example of projectile motion, multiverse of universes that are not causally mathematical equations. Although the they describe how grateful they were to have eliminated forever the same year by the worked on several other topics, ranging how time can be excluded from our connected to our own. He proposes the description would be more appropriate the opportunity to “meet two outstanding valiant effort of chien-Shiung Wu and her from the Mossbauer effect to exotic understanding of a physical system by existence of many universes but with causal for ancient alchemists rather than modern physicists” – Fritz and edoardo. collaborators – ernest Ambler, raymond atoms. However, her main contributions using mathematical constructs. The role of connections, which in principle allow their physicists, one word should still stand out – The result is a detailed description of both Hayward, Dale Hoppes and ralph Hudson. remain connected to weak interactions. in mathematics is to make a physical system existence to be detected. A possible candidate peaceful. However, there was a time when the life of Houtermans and the lives of other They conducted a memorable experiment collaboration with her group in columbia abstract, rendering it eternal and timeless. for the new theory is cosmological natural physicists were investigating dangerous friends of Amaldi. it is a beautiful description at the national Bureau of Standards and she also tested the conserved vector-current Here Smolin gives an excellent account of selection – the subject of his earlier book radiation, fi ssile nuclei and particles to of europe and science during the years the results were published in the fi rst few hypothesis and the universality of Fermi the history of the copernican revolution, The Life of the Cosmos – in which universes trigger a nuclear-reaction chain. These were before, during and after the Second World months of 1957 (Phys. Rev. 105 1413). interaction proposed by richard Feynman Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei. His reproduce through the creation of new also the times when Europe was a battlefi eld War. The words Amaldi uses – which are well The concept of their experiment was and Murray Gell-Mann – a discovery unique perspective gives new insight into universes within black holes. The presence of and scientifi c results were regarded as edited – are not those of a storyteller. instead, remarkably simple: take a β-decay source that was essential for the subsequent how each world view might have developed a large number of black holes in a universe is potential material for spies and the tellers he provides a detailed – almost scientifi c – (cobalt-60) and magnetize it with a circular development of the Standard Model of and persisted. At each stage the concept a measure of its fi tness in evolutionary terms. of spy stories. in those days, almost every report of this almost unknown physicist. current fl owing fi rst in one direction and electroweak interactions. of time becomes increasingly obsolete, The analogy with Darwinian evolution raises scientist could have made a good subject for Although Houtermans is an interesting then in the opposite sense, so that the initial Wu was above all a scientist who did culminating in the determinism of the the fascinating possibility of novel outcomes, writers and Hollywood. subject, more interesting to me are the states are the mirror images of each other. not like much exposure and dramatic newtonian paradigm. relativity is no less similar to the emergence of new species Friedrich “Fritz” Houtermans is chapters where Amaldi explains the The β decays of the mirror-symmetric headlines. She also had a wonderful deterministic, leading us to a timeless “block through natural selection. no exception. indeed, his private and “making of” the book and his research initial states turned out to be non-mirror- family and various interests, including the universe” picture where reality is the whole This book is great for providing numerous professional lives make a good subject for into accurate information sources about its symmetric. immediately afterwards, two rights of women in science. After leaving history of the universe at once. thought-provoking ideas. The reader does a book. However, in my opinion, the most subject. i think that soon i will be looking for other groups published similar evidence for Shanghai in 1936, she was not allowed in what he calls “doing physics in a box”, not have to agree with all of them to be intriguing aspect of this book is the author an equivalent book about Amaldi’s life. parity non-conservation – richard Garwin, back into mainland china for 37 years Smolin examines the applicability of the stimulated into pondering the nature of – edoardo Amaldi – and the reason why ● Antonella Del Rosso, CERN. Leon Lederman and Marcel Weinrich in and so never again saw family members newtonian paradigm to cosmology. A time. unsettling and controversial in places, he decided to write about Fritz, a man who columbia university and Jerome Friedman who had died in the meantime. The physical system can never be isolated from it offers a much needed re-examination of was married four times, spent a few years in Allegro Neutrino ou L’attrape-temps and Valentine Telegdi in chicago. cultural revolution threatened chinese external infl uences, so the solutions are an some of our most cherished views. Lubianka and other prisons and published De François Vannucci Weak interactions are at the heart of this science but did not succeed. A number of approximation to reality. The approximation ● Theresa Harrison, Warwick University. several important physics results along the L’Harmattan interesting biography. of course, Wu was remarkable chinese scientists, including can be removed by taking the universe as way. Amaldi had seen L’Aveu – the fi lm Broché: €27 not the fi rst lady working in physics – other Wu, contributed enormously to the current a whole into consideration but such a step The Adventurous Life of Friedrich Georg by costa Gravas about Artur London, the Paris, dans les années 1950. Michel a 11 remarkable women preceded her in the success of the standard electroweak theory. cannot be justifi ed because the Newtonian Houtermans, Physicist (1903–1966) czechoslovakian communist minister falsely ans et voit des bulles, ce dont il est très fi er. path to great discoveries. However, as the ● Massimo Giovannini, CERN and INFN paradigm necessarily applies to a system By Edoardo Amaldi (Saverio Braccini, Antonio arrested and tried for treason and espionage Terme résolument non scientifi que, le mot author argues, she was a person of many Milan-Bicocca. that is part of a whole. Smolin calls the Ereditato and Paola Scampoli eds.) – and was struck by similarities with the « bulle » désigne pour le narrateur – Michel

42 43 cerncourier www. V o l u m e 5 3 N u m b e r 1 0 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 CERN Courier December 2013 CERN Courier December 2013 Bookshelf Bookshelf

44 45 cerncourier www. V o l u m e 5 3 N u m b e r 1 0 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 Particle and High Energy Physics Books from CRC Press

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Untitled-4 1 08/10/2013 15:47 Untitled-1 1 03/10/2013 11:39 cerncourier www. V o l u m e 5 3 N u m b e r 1 0 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 Particle and High Energy Physics Books from CRC Press

Untitled-4 1 08/10/2013 15:47 Untitled-1 1 03/10/2013 11:39 cerncourier www. V o l u m e 5 3 N u m b e r 1 0 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 CAEN Electronic Instrumentation

730 Digitizer Family 8/16 Ch. 14-bit 500 MS/s Digitizer

The 730 Digitizer family is a 14-bit, 500 MS/s Flash ADC Waveform Digitizers. It is available in three form factors: VME (16 input channels), NIM (8 input channels), Desktop (8 input channels).

CAEN Tools for Discovery 730 Digit Family web page >>>

• 14-bit @ 500 MS/s x730 digitizers can run three Digital • VME64/VME64X (16 ch.), NIM (8 ch.) and Desktop (8 ch.) Pulse Processing firmware for Physics Applications: modules • 0.5 and 2 Vpp input dynamic range with DPP-PHA Digital Pulse Processing programmable DC offset adj. for Pulse Height Analysis • Algorithms for Digital Pulse Processing (DPP*) DPP-PSD Digital Pulse Processing • VME, USB and Optical Link communication interfaces for Pulse Shape Discrimination • Multi-board synchronization features DPP-ZLEplus Digital Pulse • Demo software tools, DPP Control Software, C and Processing for the Zero Length LabVIEW libraries Encoding

www.caen.it Small details… Great differences

CernCourier December 2013_DEF.indd 1 05/11/13 17:04 cerncourier www. V o l u m e 5 3 N u m b e r 1 0 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3 I NTERNATIONAL J OURNAL OF H IGH -E NERGY P HYSICS cerncourier

WELCOME V OLUME 5 3 N UMBER 1 0 D ECEMBER 2 0 1 3 CERN Courier – digital edition Welcome to the digital edition of the December 2013 issue of CERN Courier.

This edition celebrates a number of anniversaries. Starting with the “oldest”, 2013 saw the centenary of the birth of Bruno Pontecorvo, whose life and Towards the contributions to neutrino physics were celebrated with a symposium in Rome in September. Moving forwards, it is the 50th anniversary of the Institute for intensity frontier High Energy Physics in Protvino, Russia, and also of CESAR – CERN’s first storage ring, which saw the first beam in December 1963 and paved the way for the LHC. More recently, a new network for mathematical and theoretical physics started up 10 years ago, re-establishing connections between scientists in the Balkans. At the same time, the longer-standing CERN School of Computing began a phase of reinvigoration. There is also a selection of books for more relaxed reading during the festive season.

To sign up to the new-issue alert, please visit: http://cerncourier.com/cws/sign-up.

To subscribe to the magazine, the e-mail new-issue alert, please visit: http://cerncourier.com/cws/how-to-subscribe.

JUBILEE ALICE SCIENCE IN IHEP, Protvino, Forward muons celebrates its join the upgrade THE BALKANS EDITOR: CHRISTINE SUTTON, CERN 50th anniversary programme The story behind a DIGITAL EDITION CREATED BY JESSE KARJALAINEN/IOP PUBLISHING, UK p28 p6 physics network p21 cerncourier www. V o l u m e 5 3 N u m b e r 1 0 D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 3