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===General reference===
===General reference===
* The Book "[http://www.printsasia.com/book/The-God-Particle-If-the-Universe-Is-the-Answer-What-Is-the-Question-Dick-Teresi-Leon-0618711686 The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?]" by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Teresi | Dick Teresi] , [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_M._Lederman Leon M. Lederman]] | ISBN : [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-618-71168-0 978-0-618-71168-0]] , was Published by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houghton_Mifflin_Company Houghton Mifflin Company]] in 2006.



L&T = {{cite book| title = The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? | year = 1993| publisher = Houghton Mifflin Company| author = Leon M. Lederman and Dick Teresi|isbn=978-0-618-71168-0}} [http://books.google.it/books?id=-v84Bp-LNNIC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Sections] on books.google.it
L&T = {{cite book| title = The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? | year = 1993| publisher = Houghton Mifflin Company| author = Leon M. Lederman and Dick Teresi|isbn=978-0-618-71168-0}} [http://books.google.it/books?id=-v84Bp-LNNIC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Sections] on books.google.it

Revision as of 13:27, 4 July 2012

The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?
AuthorLeon M. Lederman, with Dick Teresi
LanguageEnglish
GenrePhysics
PublisherDell Publishing
Publication date
1993
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBNISBN 0-385-31211-3 (Original hardcover) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What is the Question? is a 1993 popular science book by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman and science writer Dick Teresi.

The book provides a brief history of particle physics, starting with the Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Democritus, and continuing through Isaac Newton, Roger J. Boscovich, Michael Faraday, and Ernest Rutherford and quantum physics in the 20th century.[1][2][3][4]

Lederman said he gave the Higgs boson the nickname "The God Particle" because the particle is "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive,"[5][6][7] but jokingly added that a second reason was because "the publisher wouldn't let us call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing."[8][9]

List of chapters[10]

A simulated event at the Large Hadron Collider. This simulation depicts the decay of a Higgs particle following a collision of two protons in the CMS experiment
  • Chapter 1: The Invisible Soccer Ball: This chapter uses a metaphor of a soccer game with an invisible ball to depict the process by which the existence of particles are deduced.[11] Also, in this chapter Dr. Lederman gives a brief background story of what led him to particle physics.[12]
  • Chapter 2: The First Particle Physicist: In a fictional dream, Dr. Lederman meets Democritus, an ancient Greek philosopher that lived just during the "Classical" Greek Civilization and has a conversation (a Socratic dialogue) with him.[13]
  • Chapter 3: Looking For The Atom: The Mechanics: This chapter covers Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton.[14]
  • Chapter 4: Still Looking for the Atom: Chemists and Electricians: This chapter covers physicists from the 18th century onward including J.J. Thomson, John Dalton, and Dmitri Mendeleev (1834–1907).[15]
  • Chapter 5: The Naked Atom: This chapter paints a picture of the shift from classical physics to the birth and development of quantum mechanics.[16]
  • Chapter 6: Accelerators: They Smash Atoms, Don’t They?: Covers the development of particle accelerators.[17]
  • Chapter 7: A-tom!: The book uses the word "A-tom" to refer to Democritus' fundamental, uncuttable particle. This chapter covers the discovery of the fundamental particles of the Standard Model.[18]
  • Chapter 8: The God Particle At Last: Covers spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs boson.[19]
  • Chapter 9: Inner Space, Outer Space, and the Time Before Time: Looks at astrophysics and describes the evidence for the big bang.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ Peter Higgs, 1964, " Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons,"Phys. Rev. Lett. 13: 508-09.
  2. ^ Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and T. W. B. Kibble, 1964, "Global Conservation Laws and Massless Particles," Phys. Rev. Let. 13: 585-87.
  3. ^ François Englert and Robert Brout, 1964, "Broken Symmetry and the Mass of Gauge Vector Mesons," Phys. Rev. Lett. 13: 321-23.
  4. ^ James Randerson (2008-06-30). "Father of the 'God Particle'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-07-02.
  5. ^ L&T p. 22
  6. ^ Ian Sample, Anything but the God particle, The Guardian, Published 29 May 2009, Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  7. ^ Alister McGrath, Higgs boson: the particle of faith, The Daily Telegraph, Published 15 December 2011, Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  8. ^ L&T p. 22
  9. ^ Higgs actually joked that Lederman originally wished to label this particle as "the Goddamn particle".
  10. ^ L&T p. vii: Contents.
  11. ^ L&T pp. 9-12.
  12. ^ L&T pp. 5-8, 21.
  13. ^ L&T pp. 32-58.
  14. ^ L&T pp. 65-103.
  15. ^ L&T pp. 104-140.
  16. ^ L&T pp. 141-188.
  17. ^ L&T pp. 199-255.
  18. ^ L&T pp. 274-341.
  19. ^ L&T pp. 342-346.
  20. ^ L&T pp. 382-409.


General reference

L&T = Leon M. Lederman and Dick Teresi (1993). The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 978-0-618-71168-0. Sections on books.google.it The God Particle Book

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