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New Scientist: Instant Expert
Why the Universe Exists: How particle physics unlocks the secrets of everything (New Scientist
WHY IS THERE ALWAYS SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING?
As you read this, billions of neutrinos from the sun are passing through your body, antimatter is sprouting from your dinner and the core of your being is a chaotic mess of particles known only as quarks and gluons.
Following the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson, Why The Universe Exists takes you deeper into the world of particle physics, exploring how the universe functions at the smallest scales.
Find out about the hunt for dark matter, discover how accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider are rewinding time to the first moments after the big bang, and learn how ghostly neutrino particles may hold the answers to the greatest mysteries of the universe.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 7, 2017
59 people are currently reading
232 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 8, 2023
"The standard model leaves many questions unanswered. Why does matter dominate antimatter in our cosmos? What is the true nature of gravity? What is dark matter? Attempts to answer such questions lead physicists time and time again to the same expedient: invent a new particle…"
My wonder is great but my math skills are weak. I gaze into the night sky and I want to know how the ultimate forces relate to everything I am seeing. Does the New Scientist have an explanation that even I can comprehend?
Yes and no….I found a treasure trove of helpful explanations and a nice effort to put them in historical context: "In the 1960s particle theorists began to wonder whether tools developed to describe this symmetry breaking could be applied to the cooling cosmos. This was no easy task. Molecular interactions in a solid or liquid can be defined by reference to a fixed set of co-ordinates, but thanks to the space-time warpings of Einstein’s general relativity, there is no such standard frame of reference for the universe."
Take this for example:
"Most of you, by weight, is made up of quarks and gluons. These particles bind together in strange and complicated ways, but we can now calculate their behaviour with much greater precision than before – and so begin to answer some fundamental questions about our own existence."
What does this mean I need to understand about quarks and gluons?
Much of what we now know comes from the giant constructs we now use to smash particles including the biggest now at CERN in Europe. This book has both the lay writing and the helpful illustrations that have moved me along the path to greater understanding. It is too simplistic for some of my GR friends who have read many books with more technical explanations. Still, my understand comes to be balanced on the fulcrum of faith when it has to apprehend something like this:
"So how can a neutron emit a virtual W or Z particle that is much heavier than itself? The answer lies in quantum uncertainty. Quantum physics shows us that there is always some uncertainty in the mass (strictly, mass-energy) of a particle, or even of a point in empty space. Over a long period of time, this uncertainty is small; but over a short time, the uncertainty is large. A neutron can create a virtual W or Z particle out of nothing at all, provided that the particle is then absorbed by the neutron or another particle in a short enough time."
"The Large Hadron Collider’s discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson, and nothing else so far, leaves many open questions. Why did matter win out over antimatter just after the Big Bang (see Chapter 5)? Why do the proton and electron charges mirror each other so perfectly when they are such different particles?"
"In general, being able to make precise calculations with QCD could reveal more places where the standard model fails to explain experimental results, perhaps pointing us towards new fundamental physics."
"Just like the charged leptons, neutrinos come in three flavours: electron, muon and tau. But, unlike charged leptons and any other particles we know of, they can morph from one flavour to another…. Super-Kamiokande showed that neutrinos change from one type to others as they travel, like strawberry milkshake turning into chocolate or vanilla."
"Our universe has been around for nearly 14 billion years, but it could vanish in the blink of an eye. If the fabric of space-time is in the precarious state that physicists call a false vacuum, it could collapse at any moment, taking us with it. The Higgs boson makes the universe stable – just. If the mass-giving particle were much lighter, the cosmos would quickly collapse in on itself."
"A quantum theory of gravity seems necessary to fully understand black holes and the origin of the universe, where gravity becomes so powerful that general relativity breaks down, giving infinity for every answer. Such a theory should give us a much deeper insight into the nature of space and time. However, when you sit down and try to describe gravity with a quantum field theory, you soon have a big problem. Calculating any quantum particle process is enormously complex, as you must add up the infinite variety of ways virtual particles can be produced. Sometimes the sum of all these processes is finite; but at other times it blows up and you get infinity. For example, the quantum theory of beta decay gave infinities – until physicists developed electroweak theory. This tamed the mathematics by adding a quantity of undiscovered massive particles, the W, Z and Higgs bosons, which cancelled out the infinities."
"As someone once said, physics is like sex: it may give some practical results but that’s not why we do it. This is especially true of particle physics, where the goal is to get a better insight into the nature of the universe by probing matter and forces at the highest energies and the smallest imaginable scales. However, even the alchemists of old knew that the science of turning lead into gold would be pretty useful (i.e. profitable), and likewise it would be silly for particle physicists to completely ignore the impact that their tools and discoveries could have on our everyday lives."
I didn’t want to blow through this but you might feel differently. This was a slow, absorbing, delight.
(My checking indicates that there haven’t been many significant discoveries since this book was published)
My wonder is great but my math skills are weak. I gaze into the night sky and I want to know how the ultimate forces relate to everything I am seeing. Does the New Scientist have an explanation that even I can comprehend?
Yes and no….I found a treasure trove of helpful explanations and a nice effort to put them in historical context: "In the 1960s particle theorists began to wonder whether tools developed to describe this symmetry breaking could be applied to the cooling cosmos. This was no easy task. Molecular interactions in a solid or liquid can be defined by reference to a fixed set of co-ordinates, but thanks to the space-time warpings of Einstein’s general relativity, there is no such standard frame of reference for the universe."
Take this for example:
"Most of you, by weight, is made up of quarks and gluons. These particles bind together in strange and complicated ways, but we can now calculate their behaviour with much greater precision than before – and so begin to answer some fundamental questions about our own existence."
What does this mean I need to understand about quarks and gluons?
Much of what we now know comes from the giant constructs we now use to smash particles including the biggest now at CERN in Europe. This book has both the lay writing and the helpful illustrations that have moved me along the path to greater understanding. It is too simplistic for some of my GR friends who have read many books with more technical explanations. Still, my understand comes to be balanced on the fulcrum of faith when it has to apprehend something like this:
"So how can a neutron emit a virtual W or Z particle that is much heavier than itself? The answer lies in quantum uncertainty. Quantum physics shows us that there is always some uncertainty in the mass (strictly, mass-energy) of a particle, or even of a point in empty space. Over a long period of time, this uncertainty is small; but over a short time, the uncertainty is large. A neutron can create a virtual W or Z particle out of nothing at all, provided that the particle is then absorbed by the neutron or another particle in a short enough time."
"The Large Hadron Collider’s discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson, and nothing else so far, leaves many open questions. Why did matter win out over antimatter just after the Big Bang (see Chapter 5)? Why do the proton and electron charges mirror each other so perfectly when they are such different particles?"
"In general, being able to make precise calculations with QCD could reveal more places where the standard model fails to explain experimental results, perhaps pointing us towards new fundamental physics."
"Just like the charged leptons, neutrinos come in three flavours: electron, muon and tau. But, unlike charged leptons and any other particles we know of, they can morph from one flavour to another…. Super-Kamiokande showed that neutrinos change from one type to others as they travel, like strawberry milkshake turning into chocolate or vanilla."
"Our universe has been around for nearly 14 billion years, but it could vanish in the blink of an eye. If the fabric of space-time is in the precarious state that physicists call a false vacuum, it could collapse at any moment, taking us with it. The Higgs boson makes the universe stable – just. If the mass-giving particle were much lighter, the cosmos would quickly collapse in on itself."
"A quantum theory of gravity seems necessary to fully understand black holes and the origin of the universe, where gravity becomes so powerful that general relativity breaks down, giving infinity for every answer. Such a theory should give us a much deeper insight into the nature of space and time. However, when you sit down and try to describe gravity with a quantum field theory, you soon have a big problem. Calculating any quantum particle process is enormously complex, as you must add up the infinite variety of ways virtual particles can be produced. Sometimes the sum of all these processes is finite; but at other times it blows up and you get infinity. For example, the quantum theory of beta decay gave infinities – until physicists developed electroweak theory. This tamed the mathematics by adding a quantity of undiscovered massive particles, the W, Z and Higgs bosons, which cancelled out the infinities."
"As someone once said, physics is like sex: it may give some practical results but that’s not why we do it. This is especially true of particle physics, where the goal is to get a better insight into the nature of the universe by probing matter and forces at the highest energies and the smallest imaginable scales. However, even the alchemists of old knew that the science of turning lead into gold would be pretty useful (i.e. profitable), and likewise it would be silly for particle physicists to completely ignore the impact that their tools and discoveries could have on our everyday lives."
I didn’t want to blow through this but you might feel differently. This was a slow, absorbing, delight.
(My checking indicates that there haven’t been many significant discoveries since this book was published)
April 23, 2021
2016 yılındaki bir dizi paneldeki sunumların kitaplaştırılmasıyla oluşturulmuş bu eser detaya girmeyen yüzeysel anlatımları içeriyor. Yer yer net olmayan ifadeler var (çeviri kaynaklı olabilir). Genel bilgi alma anlamında okunabilir düşüncesindeyim.
November 25, 2019
3.5. An interesting overview, although it really does not answer the question posed by the title. Mostly about the Standard Model, the Higgs, the hunt for Supersymmetry and the questions that haunt us all - what is dark matter??? Where did all the antimatter go???
There was one rather alarmist page on how the universe is at the brink of collapse, and I learnt that beyond the Standard Model, physicists make a great deal of rather convenient assumptions.
There was one rather alarmist page on how the universe is at the brink of collapse, and I learnt that beyond the Standard Model, physicists make a great deal of rather convenient assumptions.
May 11, 2024
This is my n-th book about the Universe and more precisely about reading in depth about the smallest particles of all.
But, there hasn’t been a book like this one. Written (or compiled) with such great clarity and flow of ideas.
Equally going into depth about topics as well as staying within the realm where a layperson can understand. That’s the biggest achievement of this book.
I’m glad that I picked it up at a local bookstore and just went through each page like I had to write an exam after. At times, I had to keep referring to Google/Wikipedia to fully grasp some concepts or understand them in more detail. But, that’s not the book’s fault.
It’s written in an easy yet carries some has wit incorporated into it.
Anyway, here would be few really good one liners from this book:
“Physics is like sex - it may give some practical results but that’s not why we do it.“
“Particles are little things, but, in order to study them, we need huge machines.”
And then, there were the following questions that are posed :
“Why did matter win out over antimatter just after the Big Bang?”
“Why do the proton and electron charges mirror each other so perfectly when they are such different particles?”
“Is Dark Matter made up on neutralinos?”
All in all a must read book for anyone who quickly (in 200-odd pages) wants to get a good grasp about what’s out there or rather down there inside an atom.
After this, I might pick up 1-2 other books in this “Instant Expert” series of New Scientist’s Explainer books.
But, there hasn’t been a book like this one. Written (or compiled) with such great clarity and flow of ideas.
Equally going into depth about topics as well as staying within the realm where a layperson can understand. That’s the biggest achievement of this book.
I’m glad that I picked it up at a local bookstore and just went through each page like I had to write an exam after. At times, I had to keep referring to Google/Wikipedia to fully grasp some concepts or understand them in more detail. But, that’s not the book’s fault.
It’s written in an easy yet carries some has wit incorporated into it.
Anyway, here would be few really good one liners from this book:
“Physics is like sex - it may give some practical results but that’s not why we do it.“
“Particles are little things, but, in order to study them, we need huge machines.”
And then, there were the following questions that are posed :
“Why did matter win out over antimatter just after the Big Bang?”
“Why do the proton and electron charges mirror each other so perfectly when they are such different particles?”
“Is Dark Matter made up on neutralinos?”
All in all a must read book for anyone who quickly (in 200-odd pages) wants to get a good grasp about what’s out there or rather down there inside an atom.
After this, I might pick up 1-2 other books in this “Instant Expert” series of New Scientist’s Explainer books.
January 21, 2023
My wife picked this book up for me at the airport the other day and it was an interesting read, to be sure! I am not a physicist, by any means, but I have a good enough grasp of "how things work" that I could follow along with the content of this book. Still, much of it was very obtuse. It made for a sometimes-jarring read. The intended audience was a bit unclear as simplistic histories existed side-by-side with complex mathematical diagrams.
Still, this provided a fascinating exploration of sub-atomic particle physics and offered a great overview of topics like "What is the Large Hadron Collider even for?" or antimatter and its implications.
I enjoyed this quick read, but am not sure who I would recommend it to.
Still, this provided a fascinating exploration of sub-atomic particle physics and offered a great overview of topics like "What is the Large Hadron Collider even for?" or antimatter and its implications.
I enjoyed this quick read, but am not sure who I would recommend it to.
August 17, 2023
Another book that doesn't really deliver on its title. I was expecting something slightly more philosophical on why the universe exists. Instead we are treated to a description of modern particle physics ...including the contribution of the Higgs particle and various other speculations but no real detail on why the Universe exists.
it's interesting enough, in its own way, but it's really cobbled together fro a series of talks given at a New Scientist, Master Class "Mysteries of particle physics" and maybe that should have been the title of the book. Happy enough to give the book three stars because it certainly has some interesting chapters/articles. but it's just not true to title.
it's interesting enough, in its own way, but it's really cobbled together fro a series of talks given at a New Scientist, Master Class "Mysteries of particle physics" and maybe that should have been the title of the book. Happy enough to give the book three stars because it certainly has some interesting chapters/articles. but it's just not true to title.
September 11, 2018
Interesting stuff. The author tries to make it easy for anyone to understand. That is always a bit annoying but understandable. The problem here though is that it is done by just saying the same things 3 or 4 times in slightly different ways.
It does go into a fair bit of detail of the history of the Large Hadron Collider that I enjoyed, but in such a short book it should of focused more on the actual finding then to how they came to be.
All in all I enjoyed it but I am a nerd. If you are new to the ideas of particle physics I would suggest something by Michio Kaku.
It does go into a fair bit of detail of the history of the Large Hadron Collider that I enjoyed, but in such a short book it should of focused more on the actual finding then to how they came to be.
All in all I enjoyed it but I am a nerd. If you are new to the ideas of particle physics I would suggest something by Michio Kaku.
December 21, 2017
A great attempt to make topics approachable that are, by their very nature, not approachable.
April 4, 2019
A short brief introduction but perfectly suited to it's target readership. If you're looking for a basic 101 primer on particle physics this is where you should start.
August 30, 2020
I think this book was a wonderful read. It was quite specific and detailed at some points but I did not get overwhelmed by information. Being a physics Bsc I found this book refreshing.
February 6, 2025
Excellent read
February 9, 2019
A book written for scientists.
February 5, 2018
Good, informative. Sometimes felt like it was a series of articles rather than a whole book.
February 26, 2021
Pretty good, but mostly a history of the subject and a brief overview. It doesn't get interesting until most of the way through when it got a bit deeper into string and loop theory. This book is best for high school students looking for an introduction to the topic.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews