Friday, May 11, 2007

The God Particle




I slogged through Leon Lederman’s “The God Particle; If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?” It may be possible to make particle physics seem less interesting, but right now I don’t see how. On the other hand, the book is refreshing in that it is written by an actual particle physicist, albeit and experimentalist, a Nobel laureate no less, who avoids waxing mystical about the hidden meaning of the universe revealed in the dance of the quarks and leptons yadda yadda yadda.

My main beef with the book is that you work your way to the end for the big payoff, the so-called “God particle”, the Higgs boson, only to have your hopes dashed. It hadn’t been found yet.

Another disappointment to me is the seemingly endless proliferation of particles and families of particles. I want the universe to have an elegant unitary explanation that physicists can explain to me with a few simple metaphors. This you won’t get from Lederman. You will get a Tom Clancyesque exposition of the technical details of particle accelerators and cloud chambers.

Lederman is supposedly the Jerry Seinfeld of particle physicists, and he interjects humor into the narrative. He’s actually pretty funny for a scientist. Not hilarious, but funny.

To be fair, this was my “bathroom book”, the one I read in short intervals while I’m seated on my throne, and it is possible that the choppy way I read the book influenced my attitude about it. Maybe I should stick to magazines in that situation.

No comments: