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The 'brazen' science that paved the way for the Higgs boson (and a lot more) [book review]
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03424-5The ‘brazen’ science that paved the way for the Higgs boson (and a lot more)
Fundamental physics has progressed in leaps and bounds in the past century — driven by strong characters and often a complete disregard for health and safety, as a spirited history shows.
Tara Shears
Grace in All Simplicity: Beauty, Truth, and Wonders on the Path to the Higgs Boson and New Laws of Nature Robert N. Cahn & Chris Quigg Pegasus (2023)
In Grace in All Simplicity, particle physicists Robert Cahn and Chris Quigg offer a personal tour of humanity’s quest to understand nature and the laws of physics. It is scientific journey as adventure story, a rollicking folk history with plenty of science — from risky experiments on mountaintops to machines buried in deep caverns, from the predilections of eighteenth-century gentleman scientists to the huge, choreographed collaborations of modern particle physics.
The book is billed as the authors’ recommended route through the field. It is like being shown around their hometown, dodging through buildings and hopping fences rather than following the main road. It might be slower, but it’s more memorable and fun.
It is an authentic view and few people are this well qualified to give it. As leaders in their field, Cahn and Quigg have witnessed many of the more recent discoveries they relate. They have met scientific giants such as Paul Dirac, who predicted the existence of antimatter and helped to found quantum mechanics. They describe heroes and colleagues with reminiscences of the type you would hope to hear at a conference bar, which rarely get written down.
Cahn and Quigg describe vividly how early attempts to investigate electricity in the eighteenth century were shocking in many ways. French chemist Charles François Du Fay had himself suspended from silk threads and charged with static electricity; when his assistant approached, Du Fay emitted “sparks of fire”.
[...]
Fundamental physics has progressed in leaps and bounds in the past century — driven by strong characters and often a complete disregard for health and safety, as a spirited history shows.
Tara Shears
Grace in All Simplicity: Beauty, Truth, and Wonders on the Path to the Higgs Boson and New Laws of Nature Robert N. Cahn & Chris Quigg Pegasus (2023)
In Grace in All Simplicity, particle physicists Robert Cahn and Chris Quigg offer a personal tour of humanity’s quest to understand nature and the laws of physics. It is scientific journey as adventure story, a rollicking folk history with plenty of science — from risky experiments on mountaintops to machines buried in deep caverns, from the predilections of eighteenth-century gentleman scientists to the huge, choreographed collaborations of modern particle physics.
The book is billed as the authors’ recommended route through the field. It is like being shown around their hometown, dodging through buildings and hopping fences rather than following the main road. It might be slower, but it’s more memorable and fun.
It is an authentic view and few people are this well qualified to give it. As leaders in their field, Cahn and Quigg have witnessed many of the more recent discoveries they relate. They have met scientific giants such as Paul Dirac, who predicted the existence of antimatter and helped to found quantum mechanics. They describe heroes and colleagues with reminiscences of the type you would hope to hear at a conference bar, which rarely get written down.
Cahn and Quigg describe vividly how early attempts to investigate electricity in the eighteenth century were shocking in many ways. French chemist Charles François Du Fay had himself suspended from silk threads and charged with static electricity; when his assistant approached, Du Fay emitted “sparks of fire”.
[...]
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