In Search of the Ultimate Building Blocks 1st Edition by Gerard ‘t Hooft (PDF)

Description

This is a first-hand account of one of the most creative and exciting periods of discovery in the history of physics. From 1960 until 1990 theoreticians and experimentalists worked together to probe deeper and deeper into the basic structure of reality, moving closer and closer to an understanding of the ultimate building blocks from which everything in the Universe is made. Gerard ‘t Hooft was closely involved in many of the advances in the development of the subject. In this book he gives a personal account of the process by which physicists came to understand the structure of matter, and to speculate on possible directions in which the subject may evolve in the future. This fascinating personal account of the last thirty years in one of the most dramatic areas in twentieth century physics will be of interest to professional physicists and physics students, as well as the educated general reader with an interest in one of the most exciting scientific detective stories ever.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Perhaps I was taken in by the 5-star average review of this book when I bot it, or seduced by the reviewer who claimed even a raw beginner could profit by reading it. I should have been more cautious when one reviewer said that it was not for the timid or faint of heart.I have read some popularizing books on this subject and even taken a course for non-physicists in the subject of particle physics. I found the book unreadable for several reasons. Professor t’Hooft undertook by himself to translate this book from its Dutch original into English; it is clear that his upbringing in the excellent Dutch school system allowed him too early to specialize in the sciences at the expense of language study. Even though the book’s English was vetted by Robin Mize, in many places–averaging once per page–the English expression is nearly unintelligible. A difficult subject whose mathematical elegance is apparent to the baptized but admittedly difficult to convey in language for tyros is here often beyond hope of being understood.The first 11 chapters, wherein the author presents a history of the subject with its brilliant breakthroughs and sometimes insurmountable problems, are readable. But once the author himself, then a graduate student seeking a thesis topic, enters the history and the account becomes personal, the book ceases to be intelligible. Sadly, this is the very selling point of the book: “This is a first-hand account . . .” The cover reviewers from Nature and Physics World are enthusiastic, but then they are scientists. “Sharp statements” and “novel formulations” are not the stuff that open doors for novices in search of broad avenues of understanding. And the “dry ingenious humor” of the author was quite lost on this reader who was struggling to parse the English with Dutch syntax. Sorry

⭐The author laments that it will be impossible to adequately treat the subject in a non-mathematical way. The results prove his point, since the abstract nature of the distinctions between various particles and force carriers makes them incomprehensible. It would have been better to include enough math to at least form a guide for the interested reader to pursue furhter the intellectual trail that lead to the standard model of particle physics. Another approach might have been to make a braver effort to really describe the physical nature of the particles and interactions covered.I was disappointed by this book, but a reader more advanced in the subject would probably find this book a very readable history of the development of particle physics.

⭐This book is about the historical search for the understanding of the quantum world and the particles that form the universe. It’s interesting, funny and technical in a balanced ammount. Gerard ‘t Hooft is one of the most brilliant physicist that were involved in the amazing discoverings that led us to the LHC and the Gibbs boson and he explains how it was, who were involved and how they lived the adventure.

⭐not what I expected. Felt ‘T Hooft wrote this on the train ride to and from work,. There are no diagrams, nothing explaining the experiments or why they were needed, no math at any level, I learned basically nothing new.The later chapters on super gravity, string theory and the like were off the cuff summaries worth less than nothing. Any other source would provide more information laid out more thoughtfully. A complete waste of a great talent. The only saving grace is his obvious knowledge of his research. wish he had written the book he is able to write, not one just to quickly meet a contract because he got the Nobel Prize. ‘The Second Creation’ by Crease for instance, or Wienberg’s ‘The Discovery of Subatomic Particles’ 1983 were much better.

⭐This is not an easy book, but its not inherently an easy topic. How to explain the current view of the nature of physical reality with no math? The author apologizes from the outset, yet does a very good job. You will end up understanding the Standard Model in many ways. I really liked Chapter seven (on Kaons) that clearly lays out an experimental example of bizarre quantum behavior. In addition, the figures in Chapter 8 really give one an insight into what “symmetry” might mean in quantum theories of the particles. Finally, many very interesting examples are given as to how the laws of quantum mechanics, eg the uncertainty principle, constrain what is possible (eg in Chapter 21, where he shows how internal structures of a quark would force much smaller constituent particles to have greater mass than the particle– the quark– they are proposed to build. Or, in Chapter 23 where he discusses how gravity can become a strong force at extremely small distances). Finally, you will get a sense of what the Higgs particle is, and its importance.Of course, you will still be scratching your head about many things…what exactly is a gauge, or a gauge transformation..or a “condensation”…there are many questions that will be vague and unanswerable for the non mathematical amateur such as myself. But there is no getting around that. This book does a great job at what it sets out to do.

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