Understanding the Universe: From Quarks to the Cosmos | Date: 08 May 2011, 00:57
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The Big Bang, the birth of the universe, was a singular event. All of the matter of the universe was concentrated at a single point, with temperatures so high that even the familiar protons and neutrons of atoms did not yet exist, but rather were replaced by a swirling maelstrom of energy, matter and antimatter. Exotic quarks and leptons flickered briefly into existence, before merging back into the energy sea.
This book explains the fascinating world of quarks and leptons and the forces that govern their behavior. Told from an experimental physicist's perspective, it forgoes mathematical complexity, using instead particularly accessible figures and apt analogies. In addition to the story of quarks and leptons, which are regarded as well-accepted fact, the author who is a leading researcher at the world's highest energy particle physics laboratory also discusses mysteries on both the experimental and theoretical frontier, before tying it all together with the exciting field of cosmology and indeed the birth of the universe itself.
The text spans the tiny world of the quark to the depths of the universe with exceptional clarity. The casual student of science will appreciate the careful distinction between what is known (quarks, leptons and antimatter), what is suspected (Higgs bosons, neutrino oscillations and the reason why the universe has so little antimatter) and what is merely dreamed (supersymmetry, superstrings and extra dimensions). Included is an unprecedented chapter explaining the accelerators and detectors of modern particle physics experiments. The chapter discussing the hunt for the Higgs boson, currently consuming the efforts of nearly 1000 physicists, lends drama that only big-stakes science can give. Understanding the Universe leaves the reader with a deep appreciation of the fascinating particle realm and just how much it determines the rich beauty of our universe.
From Publishers Weekly
Lincoln, a high energy physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), has an infectious love for physics. He also occasionally demonstrates a humorous writing style that successfully engages the reader. On the whole, however, his efforts to explain the basics of quantum physics to the lay reader do not succeed because the material he covers is often too complex to be presented in such a superficial manner, despite the book's 600-plus pages. Readers will be lost in a sea of subatomic particles-bosons, leptons, fermions, hadrons, gluons, baryons- and they'll be frustrated by the constant refrain that the material is complicated, but they can turn to the works in the bibliography for more detail. Lincoln does do a credible job of explaining some of the early history of physics, and he brings to life some of the excitement associated with multimillion-dollar physics experiments being done worldwide. He also touches on many of the unresolved mysteries of physics: why there appears to be so much more matter than antimatter, whether there are many more than three spatial dimensions and what constitutes the "missing" matter in the universe, to name just a few. By attempting to cover it all, Lincoln produces a very large but largely unsatisfying volume.
Copyright c Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Edward (Rocky) Kolb, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago
Don Lincoln never lets us forget that understanding nature's fundamental particles is part of understanding the universe.
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