''The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?'' is a 1993

popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

book by

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

-winning

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

Leon M. Lederman Leon Max Lederman (July 15, 1922 – October 3, 2018) was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for research on neutrinos. He also received the Wolf Pr ...

and science writer Dick Teresi. The book provides a brief history of

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

, starting with the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

Democritus Democritus (, ; , ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, Thrace, Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an ...

, and continuing through

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

, Roger J. Boscovich,

Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the study of electrochemistry and electromagnetism. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...

, and

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both Atomic physics, atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nu ...

and

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

in the 20th century. Lederman explains in the book why he gave the

Higgs boson The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the excited state, quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the field (physics), fields in particl ...

the nickname "The God Particle": In 2013, subsequent to the discovery of the Higgs boson, Lederman co-authored, with theoretical physicist Christopher T. Hill, a sequel: ''Beyond the God Particle'' which delves into the future of particle physics in the post-Higgs boson era. This book is part of a trilogy, with companions, ''Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe'' and ''Quantum Physics for Poets'' (see bibliography below).

Historical context

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle phys ...

director and subsequent

Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...

winner

Leon Lederman Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...

was a very prominent early supporter – some sources say the architect or proposer – of the

Superconducting Super Collider The Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), nicknamed Desertron, was a particle accelerator complex under construction from 1991 to 1993 near Waxahachie, Texas, United States. Its planned ring circumference was with an energy of 20 TeV per proto ...

project, which was endorsed around 1983, and was a major proponent and advocate throughout its lifetime.
permalink
Lederman wrote his 1993

book – which sought to promote awareness of the significance of such a project – in the context of the project's last years and the changing political climate of the 1990s. The increasingly doomed project was finally shelved that same year after some $2 billion of expenditure. The proximate causes of the closure were the rising US budget deficit, rising projected costs of the project, and the cessation of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, which reduced the perceived political pressure within the United States to undertake and complete high-profile science megaprojects.

List of chapters

*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. Also, in this chapter Dr. Lederman gives a brief background story of what led him to particle physics. *Chapter 2: The First Particle Physicist: In a fictional dream, Dr. Lederman meets

, an ancient Greek philosopher who lived during the

Classical Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archa ...

Civilization, and has a conversation (a

Socratic dialogue Socratic dialogue () is a genre of literary prose developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC. The earliest ones are preserved in the works of Plato and Xenophon and all involve Socrates as the protagonist. These dialogues, and subse ...

) with him. *Chapter 3: Looking For The Atom: The Mechanics: This chapter covers

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

Tycho Brahe Tycho Brahe ( ; ; born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, ; 14 December 154624 October 1601), generally called Tycho for short, was a Danish astronomer of the Renaissance, known for his comprehensive and unprecedentedly accurate astronomical observations. He ...

Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best know ...

and

. *Chapter 4: Still Looking for the Atom: Chemists and Electricians: This chapter covers physicists from the 18th century onward including

J.J. Thomson Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of ...

, a physicist, and

John Dalton John Dalton (; 5 or 6 September 1766 – 27 July 1844) was an English chemist, physicist and meteorologist. He introduced the atomic theory into chemistry. He also researched Color blindness, colour blindness; as a result, the umbrella term ...

, and

Dmitri Mendeleev Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev ( ; ) was a Russian chemist known for formulating the periodic law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements. He used the periodic law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known ele ...

both chemists (1834–1907). *Chapter 5: The Naked Atom: This chapter paints a picture of the shift from classical physics to the birth and development of quantum mechanics. *Chapter 6: Accelerators: They Smash Atoms, Don’t They?: Covers the development of

particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel electric charge, charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined particle beam, beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental ...

s. (The chapter title is likely a wry allusion to the 1969 film "

They Shoot Horses, Don't They They Shoot Horses, Don't They? may refer to: * ''They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'' (novel), a novel by Horace McCoy * ''They Shoot Horses, Don't They?'' (film), a 1969 film adapted from the novel * They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (band), a Canadian r ...

?") *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 particle In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. The Standard Model presently recognizes seventeen distinct particles—twelve fermions and five bosons. As a con ...

s of the

Standard Model The Standard Model of particle physics is the Scientific theory, theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions – excluding gravity) in the unive ...

. *Chapter 8: The God Particle At Last: Covers

spontaneous symmetry breaking Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a spontaneous process of symmetry breaking, by which a physical system in a symmetric state spontaneously ends up in an asymmetric state. In particular, it can describe systems where the equations of motion o ...

and the

. *Chapter 9: Inner Space, Outer Space, and the Time Before Time: Looks at astrophysics and describes the evidence for the

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

.L&
pp. 382–409

References

Bibliography

*L&T = * ''Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe,'' Christopher T. Hill and

, Prometheus Books (200

* ''Quantum Physics for Poets,'' Christopher T. Hill and

, Prometheus Books (201

* ''Beyond the God Particle,'' Christopher T. Hill and

, Prometheus Books (201

{{DEFAULTSORT:God Particle 1993 non-fiction books Popular physics books 1993 in science Works about particle physics Books about the history of physics

Historical context

List of chapters

See also

References

Bibliography