The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?

by Dick Teresi and Leon M. Lederman

Book Overview

"What Stephen Hawking did for cosmology, Leon Lederman does for particle physics" (Dallas Morning News) in The God Particle, a funny and fascinating look at the universe from the Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618711686
• ISBN13: 9780618711680
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Ride along on a 2500 year quest

Dr. Lederman takes the reader through the history of the search for the smallest building block(s) of the universe, from the thought experiments of Greek philosopher Democritus through today's superconducting supercolliders. Along the way he never fails to entertain with his wit.When I wasn't laughing out loud or bugging my wife by reading her funny snippets, I was wishing I had read this book BEFORE college (where I took four freshman/sophomore level physics classes to satisfy the science requirements for my engineering degree.) After reading this book I understand much more about subjects I allegedly "learned" in college, including the model of the chemical atom, what a quark is, etc. I also feel better about not liking the "hand-waving" involved in quantum physics. (If nothing else, at least I'm in good company with Einstein.) In addition, the insight into how science was and is actually practiced is fascinating.I am giving this as a present to my college-bound nephew!

A Masterpiece!

Leon Lederman is an experimental physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in physics (1988). If there will be Nobel Prize for the humor, he will be double winner. I read more than 100 books about popular physics, quantum theory and cosmology and this book is certainly in my Top 5 of all time! From the first hand you can read all newest information about what experimental physicists do, where are the problems, what is the next discovery they expect, and how look the atmosphere between scientists in the lab. In this book you can also read a much about history of experimental physics. But the main subject of this book is search for mysterious particle, Higss boson (God particle).Why all material things have a mass? Nobody knows. God particle is propose to be an answer. Problem is that this particle is never been seen to interact with other particles or even to exist. It is pure imagination. But, if Higgs boson does not exist there will be a lot of serious problems for todays physical theories.'The God Particle' is written with such a great charm and humor that I can not imagine better style than his. Lederman is first-class mind and in this book there are no speculations and mysticism, but only a pure scientific facts. It seems to me that always a greatest minds (Gell-Mann, Feynman, Hawking, Weinberg,...) write a best book on the subject. This is the one. No doubt 'God Particle' deserve all 5 stars. Enjoy your self!

Who Says Physics Can't Be Fun?

This book proves something that I have long suspected about physicists; a lot of them are children at heart, and they approach the physical world with the same sense of awe and glee that a child does by instinct.Lederman has a lot of fun here, writing a chronological account of particle physics in a narrative style yet the book contains enough non-physics humor to captivate someone totally disinterested in the world of physics. I particularly enjoyed his little elbow-jabs at those lazy physics theoreticians, since he himself is a technician of physics.I unreservedly recommend this book to anyone. I don't think you will be disappointed.

A great mix of serious science and lighthearted humor...

A tremendously entertaining book covering much of the history of physics by one of the best known particle physicists. Lederman's book is interspersed with some of the most humorous stories I've ever read in a science book and I can't resist sharing two of them here. In an imaginary conversation with the greek philosopher Democritus, Lederman is talking about how elusive the Higgs particle is, and comments that the book's title refers to this particle, but that his publisher wouldn't allow the book to be called "The God-damned Particle. The second is from a discussion of building a piece of laboratory equipment to use in a particle accelerator. They acquired a 12 inch naval cannon to use as a collimator, and needed to fill it with beryllium as a filter, but the inside of the bore had deep rifling grooves. He sent a skinny graduate student inside the tube to stuff steel wool into the grooves. After a few hours of work, the graduate student crawled out all hot, sweaty and irritated and said "I quit," to which Lederman is said to have replied, "You can't quit, where will I find another student of your caliber?"