Jessica Griggs, careers editor
OVER the past few months, the phrase "the elusive Higgs boson, the particle that gives all others mass" has become a bit shopworn. That is because many have struggled to find a concise way to describe the mass-giving mechanism theorised by Peter Higgs and two other groups in 1964. But for those who want the full story, there is Jim Baggott's Higgs.
Rather than a portrait of the man himself, Higgs is a history of the standard model of particle physics - the framework that explains the interactions between the panoply of particles and forces that make up our universe. Baggott begins at the conception of the standard model at the start of the 20th century, and takes the reader up to the sighting of a particle very much like the Higgs two months ago at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.
The book is a comprehensive who's who of modern physics. Baggott starts with the German mathematician Amalie Noether, who realised that conservation laws are consequences of deeper symmetries - an idea he playfully explains with a picture of Liz Hurley's famously symmetrical face. He then carries on through Wolfgang Pauli's exclusion principle, Murray Gell-Mann's eightfold way and the eventual unification of two of the four fundamental forces of nature by Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam, who won a Nobel prize for their work.
Yet while all the giants are there, the true protagonist of this tale is the physics itself. The science can be hard going at times, because Baggott doesn't shy away from difficult concepts, but his detailed explanation of how the Higgs mechanism gives particles mass is extremely elegant.
When Baggott moves from the theory behind the standard model to the discovery of its particles, including the Higgs - the last piece of the puzzle - his tone becomes more lighthearted. He recounts the race to discover the predicted particles, the political quagmire of the abandoned Superconducting Super Collider in Texas and the rivalry between CERN and its US counterpart Fermilab. And he painstakingly describes every twist and turn during the last few years of the hunt for the Higgs - from false starts to internet rumours.
Peter Higgs has always been embarrassed that it is his name associated with the particle, not only because five others came up with the mechanism at about the same time, but also because it doesn't reflect the work of so many others before he became part of the story. Higgs helps put Higgs's contribution in context and shows how he and the others were indeed standing on the shoulders of giants. It's a book I imagine the reticent Higgs would approve of, even if he cringes at its name.
Book information
Higgs: the invention and discovery of the 'god particle' by Jim Baggot
Oxford University Press
?14.99/$24.95
Mutiny at the South Pole?
Alison George, opinion editor
A CENTURY ago, Antarctica was a veritable hive of human activity. Perhaps best known from that era is the ill-fated mission of Captain Scott, who made it to the South Pole on 17 January 1912, only to find that Norwegian Roald Amundsen had got there first.
Less well known is that in 1912 there were also German and Japanese expeditions to the South Pole, and an Australian team that surveyed the unexplored area of Ad?lie Land. Apart from the Norwegians, all faced deprivation and disaster, but all had loftier aims than simply exploration: scientific endeavour. In 1912, geologist Chris Turney details these expeditions and the discoveries they led to.
Hundreds of books have been written about this era of Antarctic exploration, but in telling the gripping, lesser known tales, 1912 is an excellent addition. We learn that German Wilhelm Filchner had to contend with a syphilitic and mutinous ship captain and a base that drifted to sea on an iceberg. Australian Douglas Mawson's journey was more harrowing: alone after his two companions died, he was starving, poisoned by eating dog liver, and almost died when he fell down a crevasse.
It wasn't only humans that suffered. At that time, polar expeditions entailed incredible cruelty to animals, and Turney suggests that Scott's reluctance to harm his horses and dogs may have played a part in his downfall. Having unearthed new evidence about why Scott perished, Turney reveals that the dearth of supplies was worse than previously known.
In addition to deftly conveying their trials, Turney highlights the explorers' scientific legacies. Scott's rock samples, for example, provided important evidence for the idea that the continents were once connected.
Antarctica is now dotted with research bases. But for today's researchers the rest of the world is a phone call or plane ride away. It is sobering to think how much has changed in a hundred years.
Book information
1912: The year the world discovered Antarctica by Chris Turney
Bodley Head/Counterpoint
?20/$27
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