Customer Reviews

The Particle Odyssey: A Journey to the Heart of Matter

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The book is aimed at the intelligent layperson. It would be too basic for a physics professional or even for a physics graduate student. However, it is not basic. Anyone who is not seriously interested in particle physics will quickly bog down and find it boring. For those who are "seriously interested" it will most likely feed their interest. The book is thick with information, but is written in an accessible style. It is roughly 50% text and 50% photos (some full page, most quarter page or smaller), but this is not a coffee table book. The photos support the text and include captions that explain the photo (not merely summarize the text). Throughout the book, the photos demonstrate significant events (eg, Röntgen's first X-ray, the apparatus Chadwick used to discover the neutron, Anderson working with his cloud chamber, Lawrence's first cyclotron) or show portions of the large accelerators or detectors with descriptions of the components pictured.

As the authors state "This book is the story of how a century of discovery and invention has brought us to our modern understanding of the subatomic particles and the nature of the material Universe." Four chapters (3, 5, 7, 9) provide "individual portraits of all the major particles" so far discovered. Chapter 3 covers the basic structure of the atom: electrons, protons, neutrons, and photons. Chapter 5 covers particles discovered in cosmic radiation: positrons, muons, pions, kaons, the lambda, the xi, and the sigma. Chapter 7 covers particles or phenomenon discovered in accelerators: the neutral pion, the neutral cascade, antimatter, resonance, omega-minus, neutrinos, and quarks. Chapter 9 covers the particles discovered in modern accelerators: charmed quarks, tau, bottom quarks, gluons, the W and Z particles, and top quarks. Chapters 2, 4, 6, and 8 describe the history of particle physics. Each of these history chapters introduces the people and the devices they used to make the discoveries described in the subsequent chapter. Two chapters (10, 11) "describe the questions that are aborbing particle physicists today" (eg, What is Mass?, Is there a theory of everything?, Issues in particle astromony). The final chapter (titled "Particles at Work") describes specific applications in society (eg, TVs, diagnostic scans)

The book is as much about how the discoveries are made (ie, the physicists and their experimental apparatuses) as it is about particle physics itself. I read the book with almost no background in particle physics (having read just a few encyclopedia entries on the topic) and found most of the book to be accessible, though never an easy read (about the same reading difficulty as The Economist magazine: economist.com). However, chapter 7 was more difficult and chapter 9 was a difficult read for me (requiring re-reads of many sentences). My knowledge of particle physics is significantly enhanced having read this book and I now have a good appreciation of the accelerators in current use.

I want to write a review of this book because there are only two
other reviews. A book of this quality deserves many reviews to encourage
people to at least look at it.

Particle physics is extremely abstruse, really only for physicists
and people who like knowledge for its own sake. Many particle physicists
do the best they can to explain their subject in "English," but I don't
think that laypeople (incl. myself) can really grasp the subject w/o
going through the rigors of deriving its basics and knowing how
to use its tools, like QED and QCD, etc. (and I don't!).

So personally I may be moving away from studying the subject, but
I'm very glad I came across "The Particle Odyssey." They say a picture
tells a thousand words - truer words could be spoken as concerns the
book. The reader (even the peruser) can learn an incredible amount at
whatever level he/she is at, just by looking at the pictures and reading
the concise descriptions. We see pictures of the founders of modern physics,
their inventions, also great shots of particle accelerators and particle
tracks, and much more. The book would make a superb coffee-table addition.
It could entertain, even blow the minds of people who looked at it, maybe
spark some interest in younger people, and as I said, anyone can learn
something at the same time (perhaps unlike a familar coffee table favorite,
"A Brief History of Time"!).

The text is about as easy to read, given the complicated subject,
as possible, thorough, and enjoyable. Together with the pictures, the
authors cover the subject (and I do feel qualified to say this) more
than thoroughly.

Anyone with even a passing interest in particle physics would do
quite well to have this amazing, remarkable book.

The reason I got into physics in the first place was the combined allure of subatomic strangeness and huge machines at the edge of technology and cleverness. This book distills those attractions in beautiful descriptions and stunning photography. If I ever needed reaffirmation in my choice to become a particle physicist, this book would surely do the trick.

I've always been fascinated with the large and small extremes of physics and while on the cosmological scale there's a surplus of visually enchanting material there hasn't been as much when it comes to physics on the particle level. This book fills that demand.
Tracking the advances made in particle physics over the last century, the book includes beatiful images illustrating what the scientists of the time saw and the equipment they used. All of this is clearly and simply explained. The difficulty level of the book increases as it progresses through each new discovery which is to be expected as the underlying physics and detection methods became more complex as well. Still, to someone with an interest in science and will to learn this is a great introduction to a mysterious world.

Can you imagine a coffee table picture book on particle physics?

That's what this is, and it's beautiful.

Particle physics began in the 1890's, when the early experiments of Thomson discovered the electron. Things moved slowly, the proton during the teens's. The newtron and several other particles in the 1930's. And that's basically where physics was when I got my physics degree more years ago than I like to remember.

Then beginning in the late 1960's the world of particle physics exploded. There are more than three dozen known particles. New theories about the formation of the universe have come about. What happened at the big bang, what particles existed in the first few nanoseconds? The development of testing machines undreamed of not so many years ago have begun to answer some of these questions.

The title of this book is well chosen. It has been an odyssey. To the outsider, not working in particle physics, it has been mysterious. Newly discovered particles with names like quark, newly discovered attributes like charm, color, and strange have made it impossible to keep abreast of the developments.

Here in one easy to read, beautifully illustrated and rather short book is the whole story laid out in a way that conveys just what you want to know.

The Particle Odyssey (2002) by Oxford University Press has few, if any peers: an oversized book (a little under 12 by 9 inches) suitable for display on a coffee table, filled with fascinating photos, and yet one that will appeal not only to the enthusiastic layman but even to undergraduate physics majors.

The Particle Odyssey is an excellent introductory overview of particle physics from the unexpected discoveries in the 1890s of electrons, x-rays, and radioactivity to the meticulously planned, large scale experiments in the mid-1980s that detected the W and Z particles (thereby confirming the Standard Model). Furthermore, the three authors - Frank Close, Michael Marten, and Christine Sutton - offer a lucid, intriguing overview of major challenges now facing particle physicists as they continue to unravel the fine structure of matter, and as they join forces with cosmologists to explore the moment of creation.

Even numbered chapters generally focus on the researchers and their massive machines. Odd numbered chapters describe the subatomic particles. Surprisingly, this unusual even-odd arrangement works quite well.

The Particle Odyssey, despite its abundant photos and diagrams, does require careful reading. The reader encounters neutrinos, muons, pions (pi-zero, pi-plus, pi-minus), kaons (K-zero, K-plus, K-minus), J/PSI, D (D-zero, D-plus), upsilon, lambda, sigma (sigma-zero, sigma-plus, sigma-minus), xi (xi-minus, xi-zero), omega minus, and charmed lambda. And don't forget, there is an antiparticle for every particle. There are also various resonance states for many particles.

The three authors (Close, Marten, and Sutton) published an earlier edition, titled The Particle Explosion, in 1987. This new edition, The Particle Odyssey (2002), has two major advantages: one, the material has been updated to cover the years 1987-2002 and two, the graphics are even better.

Recommendation: For a more technical look at the standard model, Deep Down Things (John Hopkins Press, 2004) by Bruce A. Schumm is quite good.

Rarely does a scientific book achieve the successful balance of well-written content and lavish, relevant illustration. The Particle Odessey sets a new standard for popular scientific books. The historical overview of particle physics tell the stories with tantilizing detail without distraction. The photos generously embellish the storyline and in many cases, are astonishing to say the least. This book deserves prominent display on your bookshelf and would be a great gift to the science buff looking for a great read. One of the best books in popular science available...

The dictionary definition of `odyssey' is a `long adventurous journey. This single word aptly describes the immense effort that went into the quest for a deeper understanding of the `workings' of nature and what makes up the range of particles that define our universe.

This book competently describes that journey, outlining the `voyage' into the heart of matter, not only into the atom to study the protons, neutrons and electrons that make up what were once thought to be the ultimate `building blocks' of nature, but then going deeper into the `world' of quarks, which we now know are much more fundamental. These, together with leptons (which include electrons) make up all the particles found in nature.

These particles of ordinary matter, i.e. protons, neutrons and electrons are only part of the story. There are myriads of short lived particles that are seen in mesons or generated in particle colliders such as the super proton synchroton at CERN in Switzerland. To make sense of it all, in the form of the Standard Model, is an achievement beyond compare. The Particle Odyssey describes this achievement in an easy free flowing style, and with beautiful, and magnificently descriptive photographs and illustrations.

The work of delving into, and deciphering the inner workings of nature is a tribute to human ingenuity and inventiveness. If a person would like to get to know the people involved, the machines they used, the results they found, and the conclusions they drew, during this gargantuan task, then look no further than this book.