The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest, and by far the most powerful, machine ever built. A project of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclea...
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Dec 28, 2010
Gendou
rated it: 
This book starts off with an outright lie:
"...energy the likes of which has not seen in our universe since a fraction of a second after the Big Bang"
First of all, the kinetic energy in a 100mph fastball is one hundred million times as great.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%281%2F2%...
More applicably, "The Universe as a whole conducts more than 10 million million LHC-like experiments per second" in the form of cosmic rays which bombard the Earth.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/... More...
"...energy the likes of which has not seen in our universe since a fraction of a second after the Big Bang"
First of all, the kinetic energy in a 100mph fastball is one hundred million times as great.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%281%2F2%...
More applicably, "The Universe as a whole conducts more than 10 million million LHC-like experiments per second" in the form of cosmic rays which bombard the Earth.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/... More...
Oct 17, 2011
Patrick
rated it: 
The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest, and by far the most powerful, machine ever built. A project of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, its audacious purpose is to re-create, in a 16.5-mile-long circular tunnel under the French-Swiss countryside, the immensely hot and dense conditions that existed some 13.7 billion years ago within the first trillionth of a second after the fiery birth of our universe.
The collider is now crashing protons at record energy levels never More...
The collider is now crashing protons at record energy levels never More...
Dec 23, 2010
Ross
rated it: 
I thought that this was a very good oveview of the current state of theory in modern physics centered around the large Hadron Collider. The author gives a quick historical review of the development of what is called "modern physics" and the role of particle accelerators in the various discoveries about the origin of the universe and what matter is made of.
The LHC is by far the largest and most expensive machine ever built, costing around $20 billion in today's dollars. It was b More...
The LHC is by far the largest and most expensive machine ever built, costing around $20 billion in today's dollars. It was b More...
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Nov 02, 2010
Joe
rated it: 
It was good! The scope was a bit narrow only really focusing on the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, but it's understandable since the LHC hasn't been in operation that long.
The history behind the construction and the different roles played by the partner nations was all very interesting and I really enjoyed the little vignettes of the high-energy and quantum scientists that pioneered the field.
My favorite factoid: the LHC is comprised of over 1 bil More...
The history behind the construction and the different roles played by the partner nations was all very interesting and I really enjoyed the little vignettes of the high-energy and quantum scientists that pioneered the field.
My favorite factoid: the LHC is comprised of over 1 bil More...
Nov 12, 2010
Leilani
rated it:
After reading this, I have a better idea of what CERN is and what the details of the different experiments being conducted at the Large Hadron Collider are. The snippets of interviews with so many eminent scientists were intriguing glimpses at the personalities of the heroes of modern physics.
Aczel does his best to describe the science behind everything for his readers - and thank goodness for the glossary at the back - but I still got lost in the supersymmetry chapter and felt my h More...
Aczel does his best to describe the science behind everything for his readers - and thank goodness for the glossary at the back - but I still got lost in the supersymmetry chapter and felt my h More...
Dec 28, 2010
Brad
rated it:
Thankfully, there was some info in this book about the history of CERN and the LHC, along with interviews with and anecdotes about several physics luminaries. However, this book spent way too much time trying cover the history of physics, especially particle physics and the Standard Model. This drift way from the title topic diluted the focus of the book, and there was not enough detail in these diversions to really teach these areas anyway.
Sep 05, 2011
Adrian
rated it:
Decent introduction to CERN, with a brief history and summary of particle physics added on.
I would have liked to have heard more about the LHC itself, but it hasn't been in operation for too long. So that much can be excused.
Also a bit over simplified, and I had some doubts with some of the figures mentioned. Still a worthy read for the layperson, though.
I would have liked to have heard more about the LHC itself, but it hasn't been in operation for too long. So that much can be excused.
Also a bit over simplified, and I had some doubts with some of the figures mentioned. Still a worthy read for the layperson, though.
Jan 14, 2011
Nick
rated it:
I'm a longtime reader of Aczel, and I think he has another hit with "Present at the Creation." He writes for the layperson, but doesn't dumb down scientific issues. I now know the difference between a meson, a lepton, and a boson, and I know why they're important. Good stuff and well written in an interesting manner.
Nov 09, 2010
Jim
rated it:
This is a very accessible explanation of the history of high energy physics, the function of the LHC, and the Standard Model. Aczel has an appreciation for both the elegance of modern physics theory as well as the complexity of the world's greatest machine, the Large Hadron Collider.
Jul 26, 2011
Bill
rated it:
The large Hadron collider was built to prove the standard model of the universe is true or to find an alternate theory that really proves everything. I understood the first part of the book because it reviewed the particles sought and I was familiar with this. The second section of the book deals with cosmological theory and I understood very little of this because it was all new. The final section of the book is about the actual machine and is very readable. I think the author tries to conde
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Dec 18, 2010
Natasha
rated it:
This book was quite interesting and I learned a lot about physics. There wasn't a lot about the Large Hadron Collider, which was a little disappointing.
May 11, 2011
Cassandra
rated it:
It was a pretty basic read. The information was good although some of the examples seemed perhaps wrong for what was being described? The paperclip example? I felt like that had too many flaws to gloss over, and there were others that were likewise perhaps unhelpful. Overall though it was better than the last book I read on the LHC, both in readability and content.
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