The Infinity Puzzle

The personalities, politics, and extraordinary science behind the Higgs boson
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-967330-8
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 432 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 646 g

We are living in a Golden Age of Physics. Forty or so years ago, three brilliant, yet little-known scientists - an American, a Dutchman, and an Englishman - made breakthroughs which later inspired the construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva: a 27 kilometre-long machine that cost ten billion dollars, took twenty years to build, and finally discovered a particle consistent with the Higgs boson.

The Infinity Puzzle is the inside story of those forty years of research, breakthrough, and endeavour. Peter Higgs, Gerard 't Hooft and James Bjorken were the three scientists whose work is explored here, played out across the decades against a backdrop of high politics, low behaviour, and billion dollar budgets. Written by Frank Close, the eminent physicist and award-winning writer, The Infinity Puzzle also draws upon the author's close friendships with those involved.

In July 2012, in the days leading up to the momentous announcement that the Higgs boson had indeed been discovered, Frank Close and Peter Higgs were together at a conference in Sicily. In this paperback edition, Close includes a substantial epilogue reflecting on the announcement, its implications, and the impact on Peter Higgs and others.

Zielgruppe

Readers of popular science and general readers interested in the science of particle physics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Close, Frank

Fachgebiete

• Naturwissenschaften Physik Quantenphysik Hochenergiephysik
• Naturwissenschaften Physik Quantenphysik Kernphysik
• Naturwissenschaften Physik Quantenphysik Teilchenphysik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Prologue: Amsterdam 1971
GENESIS
1: The Point of Infinity
2: Shelter Island and QED
3: Feynman, Schwinger...and Tomonaga (and Dyson)
Intermission 1950
4: Abdus Salam - A Strong Beginning
5: Yang-Mills...and Shaw
6: The Identity of John Ward
7: The Marriage of Weak and Electromagnetic Forces - to 1964
Intermission 1960
8: Broken Symmetries
9: "The Boson That Has Been Named After Me", aka the Higgs Boson
Intermission mid 1960s
10: 1967 - from Kibble to Salam and Weinberg
11: "And Now I Introduce Mr 't Hooft"
Intermission early 1970s
REVELATION
12: BJ and the Cosmic Quarks
13: A Comedy of Errors
Intermission 1975
14: Heavy Light
15: "Warmly Admired Richly Deserved"
16: The Big Machine
Intermission the end of the 20th century
17: To Infinity and Beyond
Postscript
Epilogue: Bonfire of the Infinities
Bibliography
Acronyms for Notes
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Frank Close is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Oxford University and former head of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. During his career he has worked closely with CERN, home of the LHC. He is a well-established science writer, and his recent short books for The Void and Antimatter - have been highly successful. In 2013 Professor Close was awarded the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for communicating science.