The Particle Garden: Our Universe As Understood by Particle Physicists (Helix Books) [Hardcover]

Gordon L. Kane (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1995 | ISBN-10: 0201407809 | ISBN-13: 978-0201407808 | Edition: 2nd edition

A non-technical survey of what particle physicists know, and hope to know, about the "seeds" of the physical universe. This work includes the theory, its experimental foundations, its relations to cosmology and astrophysics and its future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This nontechnical survey by Kane, professor of physics at the University of Michigan, is an engaging and fast-forward tour through today's looking-glasslike state of particle physics-the physics of subatomic particles: electrons, quarks, photons, bosons and company. The first five chapters, we are told, require no knowledge of the subject; but for chapters six through 13 (the end), hold on to your hats. The "garden" metaphor in the title is only loosely stitched throughout the text, which is so well presented that popularizing constructions of this kind are unnecessary to keep the reader alongside the author's detailed, necessarily abstruse exposition. Topics covered include a history of particle physics, the Standard Theory, "grand unification" and beyond and the relation of particle physics to cosmology and astrophysics. These coherent lectures for nonscientists are a pleasure to read and reread for the layers of understanding that contemporary physics requires of the generalist. The hefty glossary is a plus. Illustrations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As theoretical and experimental research steadily pushes back the frontiers of physical knowledge, physicists find it increasingly difficult to explain the physical world to the rest of us. This title is a successful attempt by a University of Michigan professor to communicate in plain language what his profession knows and how it discovers that knowledge. Kane reviews the training of particle physicists, shows how they carry out their research, and explains just what makes up the "physics community," both here and abroad. In nonmathematical terms, he reviews the history of his specialty and where it stands today, concluding with a look at the next frontiers, supersymmetry and grand unification, and the intersection of particle physics with astrophysics and cosmology. As a clearly written description for the interested lay reader, this is probably about as good as it gets. Recommended especially for public libraries.?Donald Marion, Univ. of Minnesota Science & Engineering Lib., Minneapolis
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Perseus Books; 2nd edition edition (January 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201407809
• ISBN-13: 978-0201407808
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #582,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A lucid and precise account of the Standard Model., August 19, 2002

By 

Denzil Thakur (Dubai, UAE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Particle Garden: Our Universe As Understood By Particle Physicists (Helix Books) (Paperback)

This is specifically a book on the standard model of particle physics. Gordon Kane doesn't digress to other areas of physics and keeps himself doggedly to the subject. This in a way keeps the book brief and makes it more of a summary than a detailed treatment of the standard model.

So readers curious about the ultimate building blocks of matter (quarks and leptons) and the interactions between them (gauge bosons) will definitely benefit from this book. Kane also gives a brief account of the different accelerators and colliders engaged in testing the standard model and detecting the various quarks, leptons and bosons as predicted by the standard model(which until now has come out with flying colors, making it one of the most successful, well tested and mathematically rigorous theories yet). Kane also discusses the Higgs mechanism, which is responsible for imparting mass to the particles. This is still an active research area and the race is still on to detect the Higgs boson, which is a quantum of the Higgs field - in the bigger colliders such as the Tevatron collider in Fermilab and the LEP in CERN. If the results are still negative then the focus will shift to the giant Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in CERN which will start operating in 2005. Other areas of discussion in this book is the extended model of the Standard Theory like supersymmetric standard theory, CP violation, dark matter, baryon asymmetry etc...

Readers will greatly benefit if they could visit this web site - http://particleadventure.org/particleadventure/index.html - which I think provides a great and excellent introduction to the standard model and will complement "the particle garden". Also recommended is John Gribbin's - "Q is for Quantum - an encyclopedia of particle physics", which will definitely prove to be an invaluable source for anything and everything you wanted to know about particle physics.

The book is a bit dated(1996) and lacks charts and particle interactions equations which, I think, should have been provided appropriately to help the readers get a more better grasp on the subject and make it a more enjoyable learning experience. Apart from this grievance, Kane does a pretty good job of teaching and explaining the wonderful and complex world of particle physics.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clear and Concise, April 21, 2001

By 

Joseph Rogash (Santa Teresa, NM United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Particle Garden: Our Universe As Understood By Particle Physicists (Helix Books) (Paperback)

This is a very good book both for the layman and for physics undergraduate majors such as myself who have forgotten most of what they learned 20 years ago. In addition...without using any sophisticated math it explains basic concepts of particle physics and also presents the latest theories and discoveries. It is certainly too basic for current graduate level physics students, but for the overwhelming majority of people this book gives a wonderful overview of a fascinating field of science. Those with any curiosity concerning physics should enjoy this book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book For Interested Physics Students, December 27, 2002

By 

Brett Sanders (Encinitas, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Particle Garden: Our Universe As Understood By Particle Physicists (Helix Books) (Paperback)

When reading books about Chemistry or Physics, the level of depth is usually to the electron, proton, neutron, and there is usually some mention of quarks and antimatter and dark matter, but with no explanation of where these ideas are coming from. This book gives a good, nonmathematical description of the Standard Theory (Model) of particle physics, which gives a good account of what particles are known, how forces are treated using particles called Bosons. The books will answer any questions about what is known, but without proofs. I plan to study physics as an undergrad, and probably grad too, and have always been attracted to learning about the fundamental particles. This book was very satisfying for me, and will be for other interested students. Kane provides information about not only the standard theory, but also the facilities where research is done, where the field is going, and what a future student can expect. A quick read and definitely worth the time!