The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider [Hardcover]

Don Lincoln (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0801891442 | ISBN-13: 978-0801891441 | Publication Date: February 4, 2009 | Edition: 1

The highest-energy particle accelerator ever built, the Large Hadron Collider runs under the border between France and Switzerland. It leapt into action on September 10, 2008, amid unprecedented global press coverage and widespread fears that its energy would create tiny black holes that could destroy the earth.

By smashing together particles smaller than atoms, the LHC recreates the conditions hypothesized to have existed just moments after the big bang. Physicists expect it to aid our understanding of how the universe came into being and to show us much about the standard model of particle physics—even possibly proving the existence of the mysterious Higgs boson. In exploring what the collider does and what it might find, Don Lincoln explains what the LHC is likely to teach us about particle physics, including uncovering the nature of dark matter, finding micro black holes and supersymmetric particles, identifying extra dimensions, and revealing the origin of mass in the universe.

Thousands of physicists from around the globe will have access to the LHC, none of whom really knows what outcomes will be produced by the $7.7 billion project. Whatever it reveals, the results arising from the Large Hadron Collider will profoundly alter our understanding of the cosmos and the atom and stimulate amateur and professional scientists for years to come.

(2009)

Editorial Reviews

Review

[A] practical attitude is typical of The Quantum Frontier... a useful experimental companion to the many theory-oriented books on particle physics.

(Physics World 2010)

Don Lincoln's book should be in the hands of everyone interested in physics—even if only vaguely. It conveys the excitement particle physicists feel—and everyone else should feel—about the start of the Large Hadron Collider.

(Gabor Domokos, The Johns Hopkins University 2009)

What Lincoln does brilliantly is dispel the popular myth that the LHC was built solely to discover the Higgs boson, or 'God particle'. This is a project with a far wider reach... His fresh analogies and insights make this book very readable.

(Valerie Jamieson New Scientist 2009)

I deeply enjoyed Lincoln's very accessible discussions of antimatter and Cerenkov radiation. And the in-depth explanations of what the different calorimeters and solenoids do inside the LHC's vast underground accelerator are fascinating.

(Sally Adee IEEE Spectrum Magazine 2009)

The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider should be in every physics library: it offers an exciting assessment of the Large Haldron Collider, which runs between France and Switzerland, and surveys just why its opening is so significant. You needn't be a physicist to appreciate its importance, and the clear explorations in layman's terms imparts excitement. Perfect for any general lending library strong in science.

(Midwest Book Review 2009)

A Fermilab scientist conveys the excitement surrounding the LHC.

(Science News 2010)

The Quantum Frontier... prepares readers with what they can anticipate when the LHC becomes operational.

(John S. Rigden and Roger H. Stuewer Physics in Perspective )

Don Lincoln's playful, energetic style took me from the fundamentals of contemporary physics through to the extremely complex and sophisticated guts of the LHC experiments, touching on everything from the Earth's 'inevitable' destruction by black holes to speculated future physics experiements in a post-LHC era. Cracking it open for the first time, I was worried that a book taking under 200 pages to cover such an ambitious topic would be riddled with sterile facts listed on after the other. But the contrary is what I found.

(Jordan Juras CERN Courier )

The book is written in a very readable and entertaining style, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in science.

(John L. Hutchison infocus )

About the Author

Don Lincoln is a scientist with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He is the author of Understanding the Universe: From Quarks to the Cosmos.

(2009)

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (February 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801891442
• ISBN-13: 978-0801891441
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,347 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #50 in Books > Science & Math > Experiments, Instruments & Measurement > Scientific Instruments
  • #94 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Applied

More About the Author

Born in 1964, Don Lincoln holds a Ph.D. in physics from Rice University. He is a senior scientist at Fermilab, the US' premier particle physics laboratory. He splits his research time between data using the Fermilab Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider, a new accelerator based at CERN in Europe. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Notre Dame. He has published 300 scientific papers, two popular physics books and an occasional popular science article in magazines such as "Analog: Science Fiction and Fact."

He is first and foremost a researcher. Understanding the fundamental nature of reality is his passion. However he is also an author. He thinks it is his responsibility to share the excitement he feels when he or one of his colleagues discover something entirely new about the universe. Slowly, in fits and starts, with an occasional backslide, our understanding of our universe grows. Our species' long-held goal becomes more likely with each discovery.

Neither of his parents went to college (in fact, one did not graduate high school.) However, his mother was especially encouraging that he read and learn. And read he did. As a child, he mostly read science fiction...a genera which he still enjoys, although he has a dwindling amount of time in which to indulge. However as he grew older, he became aware of popular science writing, of George Gamow and Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov and Stephen Jay Gould. And it was they who opened his eyes to the beauty of the natural world. In some respects, his popular science writing is an attempt to pay a long-held debt. He is sure that somewhere out there, there is a child or young adult of modest circumstances who only needs an introduction to science to have a new vista open to them, to show them a new life. He hopes that someday one of his books has that effect.

You can become a fan of Don on his Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Don-Lincoln/100958137881

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and accessible, April 14, 2009

By 

Seeker of Truth (Reading something, somewhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider (Hardcover)

In The Quantum Universe, author Don Lincoln tells the story of the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is a particle accelerator in Europe that will soon be the most powerful in the world. The scientific potential of this facility is incredible, indeed it has been about 25 years since a similar facility opened an entirely new energy frontier. Lincoln is a researcher doing work on one of the LHC's big experiments and a physicist with considerable experience. This is Lincoln's second venture into popular physics writing.

The book consists of five chapters. The first chapter describes the standard model of particle physics, which is the current best theory. The second chapter reminds us that the LHC is a discovery machine and so we don't know what it will tell us. But Lincoln describes some of the more interesting questions. I would have preferred he include a discussion of extra dimensions, but his selection of topics is solid: Higgs, supersymmetry and looking for things smaller than quarks.

It is in chapters three and four that the unique strength of this book comes out. The third chapter explains how accelerators work in general, followed by some of the amazing trivia of the LHC itself (for instance the energy stored in the magnets could melt eighteen tons of gold.) Chapter four is about the detectors, of which there are four. One or more of these detectors will make a noteworthy discovery and to understand the discovery, you need to understand the equipment. The first half describes general detector principles and the last half describes the trivia associated with each detector. Lincoln warns the detail-phobic that they can skip the trivia, but the book would be much poorer had he omitted these details.

Chapter five talks about the physics world beyond accelerators. Dark energy and dark matter are topics that are needed to describe the cosmos and Lincoln tells how the accelerator studies can help us understand the structure of the universe itself. He also talks about other accelerators and possible upgrades.

Physically the book is small and attractive. The writing level is comparable to a science writer in a popular science magazine. If you've read his earlier book, this one is a bit easier to read and obviously more aimed at a lay audience. One negative of the book is the print is pretty small. But that is a publisher choice and not one for which the author has control.

As the LHC turns on and people become interested in the inevitable discoveries, The Quantum Frontier is an excellent introduction and one to which I will no doubt return.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you wanted to know about physics research, but were embarrassed to ask, April 30, 2009

By 

Katherine Schlobohm (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider (Hardcover)

This is a fascinating book that explains in simple terms what has been learned from high energy physics research, and why it's important and exciting.

Lincoln does a great job of using metaphors, and things that I understand, to describe things I never thought I could comprehend. He writes with an easy, conversational style and sense of humor, so that reading the book feels like a conversation with a very patient friend who wants to help me understand what he does when he goes to work and why he loves it.

The book gives the background to the building of Cern's LHC, the world's largest collider, and anticipates the discoveries that may come from the research done there.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for the Basics, April 10, 2009

By 

Mark K McKinney (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider (Hardcover)

This book is a very good intro to the basics of the LHC, but then changes gears in the middle of chapter 4. Here he tells you that the book is going to go into more details so general readers should just skip to the next chapter. It read to me like he had written the last half of the 4th chapter first, then was told to dumb it down for real people and just wrote around it. He really should have gone back and put some more time into that part.
Still, it has lots of interesting stuff throughout. It begins by telling us why it is safe and what we already know about the standard model. Stuff like quarks and neutrinos and the strong force. Then it explains the stuff the LHC will look for like the Higgs Boson, Supersymmetry and even possible what makes up quarks. Then it gets more interesting talking about how the LHC will create beams of particles, and how it will detect the aftermath of the collisions. I was most entertained by the last chapter's insight into what the future holds for this type of research, including dark matter and the future of large colliders. So although it is rather thin, especially without half of a chapter, I still recommend it if you don't mind getting half a book for full price.