EAN: 9780241521144

ELUSIVE - FRANK CLOSE GEBUNDEN

The story of the Higgs boson - the so-called 'God particle' - and the man who thought of itIn
the summer of 1964  a reclusive young professor at the University of Edinburgh wrote two
scientific papers which have come to change our understanding of the most fundamental building
blocks of matter and the nature of the universe. Peter Higgs posited the existence an almost
infinitely tiny particle - today known as the Higgs boson - which is the key to understanding
why particles have mass  and but for which atoms and molecules could not exist. For nearly 50
years afterwards  some of the largest projects in experimental physics sought to demonstrate
the physical existence of the boson which Higgs had proposed. Sensationally  confirmation came
in July 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. The following year Higgs was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. One of the least-known giants of science  he is the only
person in history to have had a single particle named for them. This revelatory book is 'not so
much a biography of the man but of the boson named after him'. It brilliantly traces the course
of much of twentieth-century physics from the inception of quantum field theory to the
completion of the 'standard model' of particles and forces  and the pivotal role of Higgs's
idea in this evolution. It also investigates the contested history of Higgs's responsibility
for the breakthrough when there were others close by  and explains why the boson is named for
him alone. Competition between institutions and states  Close shows  then played as much of a
role in creating Higgs's fame as his work itself. Drawing on conversations with Higgs over a
decade (a figure generally as elusive as his particle) this is a superb study of a scientist
and his era - and of how scientific knowledge advances.

Aktuelle Preise zur EAN 9780241521144

Produktinformationen zur 9780241521144