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Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit, and the Ultimate Experiment
A renowned science writer examines the work being done by high-energy physicists in their quest to understand how the universe began, what it is made of, and where it is headed
261 pages, Hardcover
First published January 12, 1987
About the author
Gary Taubes
27 books777 followersGary Taubes is an American science writer. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), titled The Diet Delusion (2008) in the UK and Australia. His book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It was released in December 2010. In December 2010 Taubes launched a blog at GaryTaubes.com to promote the book's release and to respond to critics. His main hypothesis is based on: Carbohydrates generate insulin, which causes the body to store fat.
Taubes studied applied physics at Harvard University (BS, 1977) and aerospace engineering at Stanford University (MS, 1978). After receiving a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Taubes joined Discover magazine as a staff reporter in 1982. Since then he has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.
Taubes's books have all dealt with scientific controversies. Nobel Dreams takes a critical look at the politics and experimental techniques behind the Nobel Prize-winning work of physicist Carlo Rubbia. Bad Science is a chronicle of the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiments of 1989. [wikipedia]
Taubes studied applied physics at Harvard University (BS, 1977) and aerospace engineering at Stanford University (MS, 1978). After receiving a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Taubes joined Discover magazine as a staff reporter in 1982. Since then he has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.
Taubes's books have all dealt with scientific controversies. Nobel Dreams takes a critical look at the politics and experimental techniques behind the Nobel Prize-winning work of physicist Carlo Rubbia. Bad Science is a chronicle of the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiments of 1989. [wikipedia]
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 30, 2023
Nobel Dreams is a fascinating work of science journalism written by a former physicist that vividly captures experimental particle physics right at the turning point when larger collaborations and messier collisions of hadrons (as opposed to electron positron collisions) started to become the norm. Taube’s focus is on Carlo Rubbia, the head of the UA1 experiment at CERN, who won the Nobel Prize in 1984 for the discovery of the W and Z bosons that verified the Weinberg-Salam model of electroweak physics. His physics is solid and the book gives an important (and unfortunately rare) glimpse into the day-to-day realities of doing science and how this may not live up to the ideal. Written in the late 80’s right after the discovery, this book seems to have been forgotten but in my opinion should be revisited, especially given the relative dearth of books about the history of modern particle physics.
I can’t overemphasize how interesting this book is from the point of view of someone who wasn’t around at the time but is interested in the history of the Standard Model. Given the sophisticated statistical techniques a graduate student working at the LHC must learn today, it is fascinating to learn of a time when important discoveries and even Nobel Prizes were decided based on a single or handful of events! The precise functions of different parts of the UA1 detector and how they were constructed, the spread of rumors and interplay between experimentalists and theorists, the differences between European and American science at the time, the politics of getting funding for such expensive experiments, etc. are all explained very thoroughly here. I found it especially interesting to learn in depth about the debate concerning whether supersymmetry was detected (or whether the anomalous events in question were background) soon after the 1984 Nobel. And on a personal note, I was pleasantly surprised to read so much about Bernard Sadoulet, a kind-hearted professor I remember from my time at Berkeley, although it was sad to learn how badly he was treated by Rubbia.
The book implicitly raises important questions about the role of the Nobel Prize in physics. To be clear, Rubbia deserved his prize in the sense that the proton antiproton collider was his brainchild that he spent much time and effort pushing for before it was built at CERN, leading to the discovery of the W’s and Z. The allure of glory surely helped the pace of discovery. But this was also accompanied by much shady behavior that bordered on the unethical and frankly, resulted in bad science: results were rushed, backgrounds weren’t checked thoroughly enough, competing experiments were purposefully delayed, etc. The achievement never would have been possible by Rubbia alone, without supporting scientists like Sadoulet keeping the science rigorous and Rubbia’s interpretive leaps (many of which had been wrong in the past) in check. On top of this, the book makes it eminently clear what a big role politics plays in the Nobel Prize decision. For example, the discovery of the gluon (an equally fundamental particle) never won a Nobel due to having too many people involved as well as the lack of clarity within the community about the result, whereas Rubbia and van der Meer won theirs almost immediately in spite of the fact that the first highly advertised W event was not, in fact, actually a W. In Rubbia and van der Meer’s case, the advertising was simply done in a smart way that highlighted the correct number (3 or less) of leading scientists.
Taubes paints a picture of Rubbia as a cruel dictator hated by many of his subordinates, which hopefully leads readers to contemplate the dangers of abuse of power within a scientific setting. At a time (now in 2018) when we are becoming familiar with the concept of "alternative facts," it is worth noting that there are people within the scientific community who follow this playbook to varying degrees: who state scientific “facts” or “results” knowing them to be untrue or on uncertain footing, relying on confidence and/or manipulations to convince others, and who lash out at even constructive criticism. Science is unique in the way it provides many checks and balances to self-correct for truth over time, but the system can still be abused in the short term for personal gain.
There is furthermore reference in several places to Rubbia’s “rages” and “bullying.” This could have been a great opportunity to present some of the nuances of abuse/bullying within science, but unfortunately it falls short since Taubes never gives examples of this bullying. While I don’t doubt these claims to be true, it is a bit worrying to see Taubes so publicly attack someone’s character as a journalist without providing solid support for some of his claims. And this doesn’t apply only to Rubbia, for example he describes a woman physicist (Aurore Savoy-Navarro) as having an ego but doesn’t elaborate; the reader is just supposed to take his word for it. Another criticism is the fact that Taubes frequently describes men as “hot young physicists” while describing multiple women by invoking their attire (to be fair, he also discusses how this relates to one woman’s experiences of discrimination, since she felt many male physicists judged her for dressing well). This flaw in particular may be attributable to the time period (again, written in the 80’s) but also makes me question Taube’s objectivity when it comes to gender issues.
Along those lines, I think this is a story worth revisiting through the lens of gender. Did Rubbia’s tyrannical style and bullying keep women out of the field? What really happened in that interaction with the “pretty” journalist Rubbia was distracted by? Did he treat the staff and younger women (e.g. students) as equitably as Taubes claims he treated the leading women researchers? We have a much better understanding of these issues now than we did in the 80’s, and in a field with so few women I think it is important to scrutinize possible gendered effects when claims of bullying are raised.
I can’t overemphasize how interesting this book is from the point of view of someone who wasn’t around at the time but is interested in the history of the Standard Model. Given the sophisticated statistical techniques a graduate student working at the LHC must learn today, it is fascinating to learn of a time when important discoveries and even Nobel Prizes were decided based on a single or handful of events! The precise functions of different parts of the UA1 detector and how they were constructed, the spread of rumors and interplay between experimentalists and theorists, the differences between European and American science at the time, the politics of getting funding for such expensive experiments, etc. are all explained very thoroughly here. I found it especially interesting to learn in depth about the debate concerning whether supersymmetry was detected (or whether the anomalous events in question were background) soon after the 1984 Nobel. And on a personal note, I was pleasantly surprised to read so much about Bernard Sadoulet, a kind-hearted professor I remember from my time at Berkeley, although it was sad to learn how badly he was treated by Rubbia.
The book implicitly raises important questions about the role of the Nobel Prize in physics. To be clear, Rubbia deserved his prize in the sense that the proton antiproton collider was his brainchild that he spent much time and effort pushing for before it was built at CERN, leading to the discovery of the W’s and Z. The allure of glory surely helped the pace of discovery. But this was also accompanied by much shady behavior that bordered on the unethical and frankly, resulted in bad science: results were rushed, backgrounds weren’t checked thoroughly enough, competing experiments were purposefully delayed, etc. The achievement never would have been possible by Rubbia alone, without supporting scientists like Sadoulet keeping the science rigorous and Rubbia’s interpretive leaps (many of which had been wrong in the past) in check. On top of this, the book makes it eminently clear what a big role politics plays in the Nobel Prize decision. For example, the discovery of the gluon (an equally fundamental particle) never won a Nobel due to having too many people involved as well as the lack of clarity within the community about the result, whereas Rubbia and van der Meer won theirs almost immediately in spite of the fact that the first highly advertised W event was not, in fact, actually a W. In Rubbia and van der Meer’s case, the advertising was simply done in a smart way that highlighted the correct number (3 or less) of leading scientists.
Taubes paints a picture of Rubbia as a cruel dictator hated by many of his subordinates, which hopefully leads readers to contemplate the dangers of abuse of power within a scientific setting. At a time (now in 2018) when we are becoming familiar with the concept of "alternative facts," it is worth noting that there are people within the scientific community who follow this playbook to varying degrees: who state scientific “facts” or “results” knowing them to be untrue or on uncertain footing, relying on confidence and/or manipulations to convince others, and who lash out at even constructive criticism. Science is unique in the way it provides many checks and balances to self-correct for truth over time, but the system can still be abused in the short term for personal gain.
There is furthermore reference in several places to Rubbia’s “rages” and “bullying.” This could have been a great opportunity to present some of the nuances of abuse/bullying within science, but unfortunately it falls short since Taubes never gives examples of this bullying. While I don’t doubt these claims to be true, it is a bit worrying to see Taubes so publicly attack someone’s character as a journalist without providing solid support for some of his claims. And this doesn’t apply only to Rubbia, for example he describes a woman physicist (Aurore Savoy-Navarro) as having an ego but doesn’t elaborate; the reader is just supposed to take his word for it. Another criticism is the fact that Taubes frequently describes men as “hot young physicists” while describing multiple women by invoking their attire (to be fair, he also discusses how this relates to one woman’s experiences of discrimination, since she felt many male physicists judged her for dressing well). This flaw in particular may be attributable to the time period (again, written in the 80’s) but also makes me question Taube’s objectivity when it comes to gender issues.
Along those lines, I think this is a story worth revisiting through the lens of gender. Did Rubbia’s tyrannical style and bullying keep women out of the field? What really happened in that interaction with the “pretty” journalist Rubbia was distracted by? Did he treat the staff and younger women (e.g. students) as equitably as Taubes claims he treated the leading women researchers? We have a much better understanding of these issues now than we did in the 80’s, and in a field with so few women I think it is important to scrutinize possible gendered effects when claims of bullying are raised.
March 8, 2022
This is probably the most uninspiring book I’ve ever read, and it made me reconsider my plans of going into particle physics. It glorifies everything that is wrong with the physics community, from unethical and sloppy scientists, sexism, a toxic and exploitative culture of overworking, and the idea that it’s okay to be absolute asshole as long as you have a Nobel Prize. Also Rubbia literally did nothing but boss people around and take credit for other people’s work
October 10, 2017
If you are a grad student or higher in HEP, this book will give you constant flashes of "there is nothing new under the sun." Even 30 years later, the rushing, the fights, the weird politics of CERN have not really changed. A week of sleepless nights to rush for a conference talk, only to decide that we won't go for this conference, but the NEXT one! So another two weeks of rushing...only to determine we won't go to this conference, either... it's enough to give one shivers how familiar it all feels!
Rubbia, of course, is a unique personality, and while some of the political tactics he used sound familiar, I think no one person has as much sway and power as he seemed to have. If anything, I was amazed how it only took three weeks for them to go from seeing Z events in UA1 to submitting the paper for publication... that would have taken 3 to 6 months nowadays. There are other things that are definitely different now, too. For one, we have the Internet, which precludes much of the constant jet-setting a lot of the profs were doing, and analysis-stealing that was going on. Also, thank God, it means that grad students can continue doing work on their laptops at home until 1 am instead of having to be in the computer lab at CERN until 1 am.
Some other observations I had was how much bigger the experiments are now, from 135 people on UA1 to 3000 people on ATLAS. It also seems that the amount of meetings at CERN has exploded in the past 30 years. Taubes never mentioned grad students spending half of their time in analysis meetings.
The main take away I got from reading this book is that HEP never changes. Well, the technology changes, but the personalities and excitement of searching for new physics feels all very familiar. SUSY is still just around the corner. John Ellis still has long hair. It was also fun reading about so many things that were so hard to find back then, but that an analysis takes for granted now- I mean, people calibrate their machines on Z bosons now! Jets and tops are gigantic sources of background! 30 years from now, it'll be fun to see if the Higgs will be a huge, annoying background people are trying to eliminate from their analysis. Either way, we'll still be looking for SUSY, I'm sure...
Rubbia, of course, is a unique personality, and while some of the political tactics he used sound familiar, I think no one person has as much sway and power as he seemed to have. If anything, I was amazed how it only took three weeks for them to go from seeing Z events in UA1 to submitting the paper for publication... that would have taken 3 to 6 months nowadays. There are other things that are definitely different now, too. For one, we have the Internet, which precludes much of the constant jet-setting a lot of the profs were doing, and analysis-stealing that was going on. Also, thank God, it means that grad students can continue doing work on their laptops at home until 1 am instead of having to be in the computer lab at CERN until 1 am.
Some other observations I had was how much bigger the experiments are now, from 135 people on UA1 to 3000 people on ATLAS. It also seems that the amount of meetings at CERN has exploded in the past 30 years. Taubes never mentioned grad students spending half of their time in analysis meetings.
The main take away I got from reading this book is that HEP never changes. Well, the technology changes, but the personalities and excitement of searching for new physics feels all very familiar. SUSY is still just around the corner. John Ellis still has long hair. It was also fun reading about so many things that were so hard to find back then, but that an analysis takes for granted now- I mean, people calibrate their machines on Z bosons now! Jets and tops are gigantic sources of background! 30 years from now, it'll be fun to see if the Higgs will be a huge, annoying background people are trying to eliminate from their analysis. Either way, we'll still be looking for SUSY, I'm sure...
September 25, 2016
This book is particularly gripping, which is extraordinary considering the fact that this is more like a history/biography novel. I'm not sure how relatable this book would be to a non-physicist, but anyone can relate to the politics and personalities that the book describes.
August 17, 2014
The physics equivalent to Watson's 'The Double Helix'. Very interesting read
January 18, 2011
This book gave a very interesting look at the interior politics of Nobel level physics. Unfortunately I still don't know how the story of high energy physics has panned out since then.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews