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Syndetics ICE Summary:
A useful scientific theory, claimed Einstein, must be explicable to any intelligent person. In Deep Down Things, experimental particle physicist Bruce Schumm has taken this dictum to heart, providing in clear, straightforward prose an elucidation of the Standard Model of particle physics--a theory that stands as one of the crowning achievements of twentieth-century science. In this one-of-a-kind book, the work of many of the past century's most notable physicists, including Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Feynman, Gell-Mann, and Weinberg, is knit together in a thorough and accessible exposition of the revolutionary notions that underlie our current view of the fundamental nature of the physical world. Schumm, who has spent much of his life emmersed in the subatomic world, goes far beyond a mere presentation of the "building blocks" of matter, bringing to life the remarkable connection between the ivory tower world of the abstract mathematician and the day-to-day, life-enabling properties of the natural world. Schumm leaves us with an insight into the profound open questions of particle physics, setting the stage for understanding the progress the field is poised to make over the next decade or two.
Introducing readers to the world of particle physics, Deep Down Things opens new realms within which are many clues to unraveling the mysteries of the universe.
(Ingram Syndetics 2020-04-06)Reviews (1)
Syndetics ICE Choice Review:
This is one of several recently published books attempting to provide for interested nonphysicists a relatively nonmathematical account of what has come to be called the standard model of particle physics. Much of the same material is covered by Martinus Veltman in Facts and Mysteries in Particle Physics (CH, Nov'03, 41-1607) and by William B. Rolnick in Remnants of the Fall (CH, Dec'03, 41-2233), but Schumm's treatment is perhaps more detailed and without the numerous biographical sketches provided by Veltman and the extensive but relevant poetry included in Rolnick's book. Schumm (physics, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) starts with what he calls the Great Awakening in the early 20th century involving relativity and quantum mechanics, and then moves on to describe the gradual development since the late 1950s of our current view of the elementary particles and forces that make up the standard model. Very little about the relationship between particle physics and cosmology is included. The last two chapters discuss what might lie in the future for particle physics, including the search for the Higgs boson needed to provide an explanation, still lacking, for the masses of the elementary particles. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through faculty. R. L. Stearns emeritus, Vassar College (Choice 2008-05-09, Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.) |