A Scientific Saga

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Beyond the oscillating at close to the speed of light, historical perspective as investments for God Particle but only the left-handed ones carry the future. the crucial weak charge. The pervasive The book conveys the importance of By Leon Lederman and Higgs field also carries this weak charge, long-term investments in infrastructure Christopher Hill enabling transitions between the left- at the high-intensity, as well as the and the right-handed particles, and it high-energy bounds of particle PROMETHEUS: 2013. is in these transitions that the origin of physics. The difficulties in pushing 325PP. $24.95 mass arises. technology to its limit are brought home The section on the methods required in the story of the commissioning of to build particle accelerators begins with the LHC. The experimental evidence the earliest developments of microscopes for a Higgs Boson is recognized as and their inextricable link with telescopes. being of far-reaching consequence in These techniques are brought fully up to our understanding of the Universe, aving arrived at the moniker date with the LHC, where the evolution but for the politicians the questions ‘God particle’ in Leon Lederman’s of the methods using radio-frequency are frequently about return on (large) Hprevious popular science book from cavities to accelerate and magnets to investments. Repeated historical examples 20 years ago, it is clear that the authors bend and focus the particle beams is illustrate how the gains may be long- or of its sequel, Beyond the God Particle, seen as a stepping stone to the future. short-term, but in the end the wealth of understand how this provokes people. The starting point for the chapter on the nations becomes inextricably linked to The possibility of a ‘Satan particle’ and of world’s most powerful accelerators is answering big questions such as the origin ‘Mass’ being more an ecumenical matter the meeting where William Gladstone of mass. are deftly handled at the start of the book, asks where all that “wasteful spending” This saga is well worth the journey: the where Norse mythology plays a part: the is going and Michael Faraday responds book will stir people up for all the right Nibelungen experimenters are now seen “I don’t know what good this will be, reasons and is recommended reading for as toiling for the past 20 years towards the but one day you may tax it”. In this all those interested in the largest scales of Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ring, and context the motivation for the pursuit of human endeavour. ❐ the 4 July 2012 event at CERN, where the science is seen as driven by technological ATLAS and CMS experiments made their challenges that subsequently power the REVIEWED BY TONY DOYLE historic announcements as the start of economies of great nations. The techniques Tony Doyle is at the Scottish Universities Physics a saga. employed in developing the world’s Alliance, School of Physics and Astronomy, Lederman and Hill manage to describe largest microscopes and analysing the University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK. the mechanism for mass generation, associated data are recognized from a e-mail: [email protected] the methods required to build particle

accelerators, the motivation for scientific ON OUR BOOKSHELF endeavour and the name God particle in 300 captivating pages. With apparent Churchill’s Bomb: How the United States Overtook ease they entertain while telling us how Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race we came to understand our Universe in By Graham Farmelo the past, what we know now and how BASIC BOOKS: 2013. 544PP. $29.99 we may go about understanding it in the We all know the outcome of the Manhattan future. Their answers to the big questions Project, which effectively ended the Second World are well grounded in the scientific War. But few of us are aware of Britain’s early method, resisting any temptation for lead in the development of the hydrogen bomb, conjecture and conveyed with a youthful or of Churchill’s prescience when it came to enthusiasm for the way things work nuclear warfare. that is difficult to resist. In a compelling page‑turning narrative they reveal wide- ranging and important insights into the The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the remaining mysterious puzzles of the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of physical world in an authoritative yet light- a New World hearted way. By Sean Carroll The mechanism for mass generation PLUME: 2013. 368PP. $17 becomes a tall tale of big fish (mountain The extraordinary story of how experimental lakes full of rainbow trout). We’re carefully particle physicists caught up with the led up the mountain, understanding theoreticians, and how the Large Hadron Collider how left- and right-handed fields are will allow them to take the lead and go beyond the distinguished in electroweak theory. standard model. In this lake, the left-handed and the right-handed particles are seen to be

NATURE PHYSICS | VOL 9 | OCTOBER 2013 | www.nature.com/naturephysics 603