| View Larger Image | The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? | Paperbackby Leon Lederman (Author), Dick Teresi (Author)
| List Price: | $15.95 | | Price: | $10.85 | | You Save: | $5.10 (32%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Mariner Books | | Page Count: | 448 Pages | | Publication Date: | June 26, 2006 | | Sales Rank: | 34,720th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780618711680
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
In this extraordinarily accessible and enormously witty book, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman guides us on a fascinating tour of the history of particle physics. The book takes us from the Greeks' earliest scientific observations through Einstein and beyond in an inspiring celebration of human curiosity. It ends with the quest for the Higgs boson, nicknamed the God Particle, which scientists hypothesize will help unlock the last secrets of the subatomic universe. With a new preface by Lederman, The God Particle will leave you marveling at our continuing pursuit of the infinitesimal. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 47 reviews)
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The God Particle by R. T. Thomson (Canterbury New Zealand)  5 Stars
October 26, 2009
Great book. I can see why this guy won the Nobel Prize.
And if there is a Nobel Prize for Scientific Humour, he should be well up the list!
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A Superb Experimenter's View of Particle Physics by Antonio J. B. Prates (Rio, RJ, Brazil) 5 Stars
September 12, 2009
This is a superbly didactical history of particle physics, from the Pre-Socratics to the current race to find the Higgs (God) particle. In between Leon Lederman, 1988 Nobel laureate in physics, presents the reader, in a very accessible and non-mathematical style, most of the fundamental concepts of Classical and Modern Physics. And all this spiced with his fine sense of humor, and stuffed with numerous anecdotes, many of which having himself as the protagonist or supporting character.
Another differential of this volume, in comparison with other scientific divulgation books, is that Lederman gives plenty of details not only of the theoretical but also of the experimental issues of the apparatuses and labs used to investigate the inner structure of the atom. Many previously obscure (at least to the lay people) aspects of particle accelerators and colliders, are described very clearly. How Lederman succeeds to do it without any photos or illustrations is really surprising.
It is an (understandable) pity that the book ends mentioning the SSC (Superconducting Super Collider) then under construction in Waxahachie, Texas, as the ultimate hope of the science community to find the Higgs boson, which could provide many answers to the main questions until unanswered by the latest cosmological and quantic models, and probably a very important jump ahead in the quest for the TOE (Theory of Everything). The SCC ended up never being finished, because the US congress withdrew the project funding, and now the hope is focused in the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) built by CERN (the European Community Research Center) in the frontier of France and Switzerland. But the book was written in 1993, and Lederman didn't have a crystal ball to predict the coming events...
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The God Particle by revduck 5 Stars
July 04, 2009
A great book, I mean GREAT! Maybe the best readable book on the subject I've read.
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Very Accessible by smm (OH, USA) 5 Stars
May 03, 2009
I've never had a physics class in college, and the one I had in high school certainly didn't cover particle physics or quantum theory. This book helped me learn enough about the above, and the Higgs, to write my research paper on the Higgs.
Yes, there is only one chapter on the Higgs and it's shorter than some of the others. But without the information preceding, one wouldn't have the full understanding of why the Higgs is so important. It's NOT just about giving mass to all other particles, it has to do with the Standard Model equations, supersymmetry, and an inflationary universe as well.
I found Lederman to be very humorous and found myself laughing out loud at times. My only fault with the book is that is does need updating. As has been mentioned, the top quark was found and the book does not mention that. While it still talks about the SSC, no mention is made of the LHC, which is another addition that should be made.
All in all, I learned I TON from this book. Five stars.
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An Interesting Read by Eric Boyer (Canada)  4 Stars
December 04, 2008
This book is very interesting to read and provides a good introduction to the world of physics for someone who has no knowledge on the subject.
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe
by Leon M. Lederman (Author), Christopher T. Hill (Author)
When scientists peer through a telescope at the distant stars in outer space or use a particle-accelerator to analyze the smallest components of matter, they discover that the same laws of physics govern the whole universe at all times and all places. Physicists call the eternal, ubiquitous constancy of the laws of physics symmetry. Nobel Laureate Leon M. Lederman and physicist Christopher T. Hill explain the supremely elegant concept of symmetry and all its profound ramifications...
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| Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics
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A useful scientific theory, claimed Einstein, must be explicable to any intelligent person. In Deep Down Things, experimental particle physicist Bruce Schumm has taken this dictum to heart, providing in clear, straightforward prose an elucidation of the Standard Model of particle physics—a theory that stands as one of the crowning achievements of twentieth-century science. In this one-of-a-kind book, the work of many of the past century's most notable physicists, including Einstein,...
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| The Particle Garden: Our Universe As Understood By Particle Physicists (Helix Books)
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| The God Particle: A Novel
by Richard Cox (Author)
There is a divine spark within us all.
In one man, that spark is about to explode.
American businessman Steve Keeley is hurtled three stories to the cold cobblestone street in Zurich. In the days that follow, a doctor performs miraculous surgery on Keeley, who wakes up to find that everything about his world has changed. He seems to sense things before they happen, and he thinks he’s capable of feats that are clearly impossible. It’s a strange and compelling new world for him, one...
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| The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, the Unsung Triumph of Modern Physics
by Robert Oerter (Author)
For fans of Brian Greene and Stephen Hawking, a guide to the most important theory in modern physics, in a tour de force of science writing
There are two scientific theories that, taken together, explain the entire universe. The first, which describes the force of gravity, is widely known: Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. But the theory that explains everything else—the Standard Model of Elementary Particles—is virtually unknown among the general public. ...
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