The Edge of Physics: A Journey to the Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe/Dispatches from the Frontiers of Cosmology
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT / GERALD DUCKWORTH: 2010 336 PP. $25/£16.99
In August 1984, the science writer Gary Taubes travelled to Geneva to spend nine months at the CERN particle physics laboratory. It was a heady time for particle physicists: the W and Z bosons had just been detected there, an experimental run to search for supersymmetric particles was under way and, after many years of trying, theorists had sorted out a show-stopping anomaly in string theory. The book that Taubes wrote about his time at CERN — Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit and the Ultimate Experiment (Random House, 1986) — is a warts-and-all portrait of the physicists he met, notably Carlo Rubbia, the larger-than-life Italian experimentalist who had shared the 1984 Nobel Prize for the discovery of the W and Z, and was later one of the driving forces behind the decision to build the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the Geneva site. Now, a decade into a new century, the LHC is a household name and, after a highly visible false start, is smashing protons together at record energies, allowing particle physicists to begin another search for a first experimental glimpse of a supersymmetric particle and much else besides.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution