The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World
by Sean Carroll
Dutton, 2012 (($27.95))

For those wishing to understand the nitty-gritty of how physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider found the new entity-that-may-be-the-Higgs-boson, here is a timely account from physicist and author Carroll. Starting with the dramatic July 4, 2012, announcement of the new particle, then going briefly back in time to the Greek philosophers—the first to suggest that all matter was composed of tiny, elemental pieces—he reconstructs the global hunt for the particle that gives all others their mass, stopping to explain basic physics along the way.

COMMENT AT ScientificAmerican.com/nov2012

This article was originally published with the title The Particle at the End of the Universe.

2 Comments

1. 1. Andrew Planet 03:36 PM 11/3/12

   I just wondered if the Higgs particle is part and parcel of what is discharged at the black hole high energy jets, in the sense of no smaller a particle can be created because no higher energy level can be applied to create it?

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2. 2. rloldershaw 08:46 PM 11/3/12

   
   AP: "I just wondered if the Higgs particle is part and parcel of what is discharged at the black hole high energy jets"
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   This might be the case if Higgs particles were itsy-bitsy ink droplets spewed out to print a horde of pop-sci books which many will buy (helping to pay the authors mortgages) but amazingly few will really understand.
   
   That 99% of the population does not have any meaningful understanding of the Higgs Mechanism is a very good thing for theoretical physicists. It is bizarre, extremely dubious and thoroughly untestable.
   
   But how they BELIEVE in things they cannot observe ("sorry you only get to see decay products, but take our word for it that a Higgsy is there")or see, or understand or put to scientific tests!
   
   Like magnetic monopoles and WIMPs, you just gotta believe.
   
   Traditional science with its definitive predictions and testing is so last century. Long live untestable postmodern pseudo-science!

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