II) and J. Krige (volume III), published in a three- volume paperback set by North Holland in 1996. These books are quite expensive and rare, so an interlibrary loan is your best bet to get access to them.No one book can explain all facets of any given subject in enough detail to satisfy every reader. Frequently a reader might want to know a lot more about a topic mentioned only briefly. Luckily, there are many good books written for a lay audience on a variety of physics topics and a reader can find that deeper and more thorough explanation that they are wanting. In this section, I try to recommend some of the better books available on the subject matter covered in this book.
It is difficult to organize such a list, as books often have multiple strengths. Thus I have chosen to list the books, with some commentary, and list for each which chapters you’ve read here those books overlap.
For general information about what we know about the universe and the particles it contains, I recommend The Particle Garden by Gordon Kane (Helix Books, 1996). It is a short book that describes very clearly what we currently know. It is written by a theoretical physicist, so it is light on experimental details. (Chapters 1 and 2)
For a more experimental treatment, my own Understanding the Universe: From Quarks to the Cosmos (World Scientific, 2004) is a better choice. This book is much longer and covers the history of particle physics, our current understanding of the standard model, accelerators and detectors, current mysteries, and particle physics links to cosmology. The treatment in my earlier book is aimed at a lay audience, but it is at a slightly more detailed level than this book. (Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4)
For a light and breezy treatment of the history of particle physics, interspersed with a discussion of the universe as we currently understand it and culminating in a very short and nontechnical discussion of the Higgs boson, try Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi’s The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Lederman’s folksy style and Teresi’s professional writing background are apparent throughout. (Chapters 1 and 2)
Gordon Kane’s Supersymmetry (Perseus Publishing, 2001) is a book written ostensibly for a lay audience on the topic of supersymmetry and walks a very fine line between a lay audience and a nonmathematical treatment for a very junior scholar. For any serious first exposure to the topic, this book is a must. The reader should be aware that Kane is an ardent proponent of supersymmetry, so there is some merit to critics’ comments that the book is not perfectly balanced and it leaves the reader with the impression that the existence of super-symmetry in the world is a more of a foregone conclusion than it actually is. (Chapter 2)
For a discussion of the important role that symmetry plays in modern particle theories, the book Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe, by Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill (Prometheus Books, 2004) is really quite nice. The idea of symmetry is sometimes daunting to the casual student of physics, and these authors do a good job of demystifying the topic. (Chapter 2)
For an accessible treatment about what we know that is somewhat more technical than what you’ve read here, try Deep Down Things by Bruce Schumm (Johns Hopkins, 2004). The reader should be aware that Schumm’s book does break the taboo of popular literature, by occasionally including an equation. But these equations are used as spice rather than as an obstacle to understanding, and this choice will be welcome to all but the most math phobic. (Chapters 1 and 2)
The Charm of Strange Quarks: Mysteries and Revolutions of Particle Physics, by Michael Barnett, Henry Muhry, and Helen Quinn (Springer Verlag, 2002), is an unusual book. It covers the usual subjects, but the format is a mix of book, magazine, and textbook, with sidebars, column notes, and professionally drawn graphics. It has a vague similarity to the “X for Dummies” series (although it is entirely unrelated). It also is one of the few books that has any treatment of detectors. (Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4)
Another unusual book is The Particle Odyssey: A Journey to the Heart of Matter, by Frank Close, Michael Marten, and Christine Sutton (Oxford University Press, 2002). This book can be described as a coffee table book, with extensive color photographs. It is a photo montage that includes history and future, even including some photographs of LHC prototypes. For those who need to see something to understand it, this is a very valuable book. (Chapter 1)
For those readers who like the stories of the history and the personalities as much as the physics, Martinus Veltman’s Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics (World Scientific, 2003) is a good choice. In addition to the usual descriptions of the physics we know, Veltman intersperses the text with one- page asides describing many of the colorful characters who have helped us understand our universe. As a Nobelist himself, Veltman is personally acquainted with many of these people and so many of his anecdotes have a firsthand flavor. Veltman mentions accelerators and detectors, but the cursory treatment reflects his own high achievement as a first- rate theoretical mind. (Chapters 1 and 2)
While this book focused on the Large Hadron Collider, the last chapter flirted with the intriguing questions of dark matter and energy. With the recent discovery of what can be interpreted as dark energy, there has been an explosion of books on the subject. Dan Hooper’s Dark Cosmos (HarperCollins, 2007) is an ideal introduction to the dark side of the universe for a reader who has no previous exposure. Hooper’s book is light on details and paints with a hasty brush, but for a reader for whom the subject is entirely new, I highly recommend it. (Chapter 5)
A somewhat deeper treatment of the same material can be found in Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Energy, Dark Matter, and the Fate of the Cosmos, by Iain Nicolson (Johns Hopkins, 2007). Both dark matter and dark energy are described. (Chapter 5)
While the history of the discoveries of particle physics in the twentieth century is not a focus of this book, for a reader who is interested in the subject, I recommend the brilliantly written The Second Creation, by Robert Crease and Charles Mann (Rutgers University Press, 1996).
An interesting book that describes the discovery of the Z and W bosons and gives a real sense of the excitement and competition that goes along with a Nobel- bound discovery is Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit, and the Ultimate Experiment by Gary Taubes (Tempus, 1986). This book is out of print, so you will need to get it from your library or an online out- of- print book source.
For a person who is interested in the history of CERN, it is hard to compete with History of CERN, volumes I, II, and III, by A. Hermann et al. (volumes I II) and J. Krige (volume III), published in a three- volume paperback set by North Holland in 1996. These books are quite expensive and rare, so an interlibrary loan is your best bet to get access to them.
The astute reader will note that most of the suggested reading is related to the first two chapters, which is to say what we know and what our theories are looking for. Chapters 3 and 4, which describe the accelerator and detector principles, as well as details of the LHC complex, are uncommon. Partially this is because the LHC has not yet begun operations. I expect that this will change as time goes on. However, it also reflects an attitude among some that these are merely tools, and not as interesting as the discoveries they make possible. However, the history of science has always been an interplay between the discoveries and the equipment. It is impossible to fully appreciate why we believe the things we do if we don’t understand the evidence. And one can never understand the evidence without an appreciation of the tools.
Finally, chapter 5 deals with the future and specifically one that has not been decided. Precisely what new facilities will be built will become apparent over the next few years. While what is written here is our thinking as of the summer of 2008, it is certain that the future as it unfolds will differ in some way. Your best chance for keeping current on these topics is to watch the popular science magazines.
For the more technically minded I recommend the journal article “General-Purpose Detectors for the Large Hadron Collider” by Daniel Froidevaux and Paris Sphicas in Annual Reviews of Nuclear Particle Science, volume 56, pages 375–440, published in 2006. Note that this is a journal article, intended for other particle physicists, and is definitely not easy reading.
Web sites are always a dangerous thing to publish, because the World Wide Web is a fluid place and things change rapidly. However, there are some sites that are likely to exist for some time and would be helpful for the avid reader. They include the following:
The CERN home Web site: www.cern.ch /
The press office for CERN: http: // press.web.cern.ch/press /
The ATLAS experiment: http: //atlas.ch /
The CMS experiment: http: // cms.cern.ch /
The LHCb experiment: http: // lhcb.web.cern.ch/lhcb /
The ALICE experiment: http: // aliceinfo.cern.ch/Public /
Particle physics news and images from across the world: www.interactions.org/cms/