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Elusive

How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass

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Elusive

By: Frank Close
Narrated by: Richard Burnip
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

In the summer of 1964, a reclusive young professor at the University of Edinburgh wrote two scientific papers which have come to change our understanding of the most fundamental building blocks of matter and the nature of the universe. Peter Higgs posited the existence an almost infinitely tiny particle—today known as the Higgs boson—which is the key to understanding why particles have mass, and but for which atoms and molecules could not exist.

For nearly 50 years afterwards, some of the largest projects in experimental physics sought to demonstrate the physical existence of the boson which Higgs had proposed. Sensationally, confirmation came in July 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. The following year Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. One of the least-known giants of science, he is the only person in history to have had a single particle named for them.

This revelatory book is 'not so much a biography of the man but of the boson named after him'. It brilliantly traces the course of much of 20th-century physics from the inception of quantum field theory to the completion of the 'standard model' of particles and forces, and the pivotal role of Higgs's idea in this evolution. It also investigates the contested history of Higgs's responsibility for the breakthrough when there were others close by, and explains why the boson is named for him alone. Competition between institutions and states, Close shows, then played as much of a role in creating Higgs' fame as his work itself. Drawing on conversations with Higgs over a decade (a figure generally as elusive as his particle) this is a superb study of a scientist and his era—and of how scientific knowledge advances.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Frank Close (P)2022 Penguin Audio
History Physics Science & Technology String Theory
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good read

I enjoyed reading about higgs and the saga of the boson. I didnt like the narrator reminding the reader every 2nd sentences that there was more than one discoverer of the mechanism and higgs didnt like being named etc etc .... anyone reading this book knows that and got it the first 195 times...otherwise very insightful and the beef with hawking wad a highlight.

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A captivating intermingling

A humbling and inspiring listen; Elusive skillfully foregrounds and backgrounds one man's history and personal endeavour in relation to the evolution of our collective thinking on some of our most profound questions. The book respects Peter Higgs' humility and curiosity with a rewarding and outward looking epilogue that opens up the mind bending questions that follow the confirmation of the Higgs Bosun at CERN / LHC.

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Did justice to both Higgs and the story of the LHC

It takes a complex subject and really brings it to live, telling the human stories behind some tough scientific concepts. I think the narrator did an exceptional job and made the topic more approachable - I'm very glad I listened to the audiobook rather than reading myself.

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