Customer Reviews

From Quarks to the Cosmos: Tools of Discovery

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have read lots of popular science books about particle physics and this is way out in front of the pack! It clarified many things that other authors just assumed the reader could understand. For example, the section on how to build synchrotrons and accelerators and why the devices are shaped the way they are was so clear. Plus the color photographs and drawings make it a lovely book to just browse through. If you love particle physics, or are even just a little intrigued, this book is a must! I intend to reread it sometime.

As the name of this reference implies, it provides a good review from particle physics to astrophysics, and of significance, relates inner space to outer space. Both theoretical and experimental methods are explored. The classical big-bang theory is clearly discussed, as are its difficulties and the solutions provided by inflation theory.

Over the years our family has purchased between 20 and 30 volumes from the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN series. This volume, the 28th, remains among, or perhaps might be, THE most profound of the series. As another reviewer has already mentioned, the presentation is clear, concise, and beautifully illustrated. It underscores the interplay of technological advancement with theory, while offering one of the most cogent discussions of inflation and the standard model I have seen. Likewise, while many writers have chronicled the contributions of various theoreticians, few have provided as comprehensive an historical overview of the devices and instrumentation by which so much theoretical work has been experimentally substantiated.

I also suspect that, like myself, many laypersons reading better-known treatments of the Big Bang might have overlooked the logical impossibility of chemical elements as we now know them to have existed in the immense-but-grapefruit-sized mass that constituted our universe at or shortly after it's 'inception.' The popular scientific literature is full of discussions of the "fusion furnaces of the stars" and their role in producing heavier elements. But this volume, originally written before the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the abandonment of the Superconducting Super-Collider (SSC), contains the most striking depiction of how atoms and subatomic particles themselves would have to have been formed from still smaller entities. Simultaneously breath-taking and awe-inspiring, in its entirety the book allows the reader to come away with his or her head in the heavens and both feet [still] on the ground. Five stars!!!