50. The Particle at the End of the Universe by Sean Carroll I have "absolute zero" background in physics. I never even took it in high school. Yet, I've always been fascinated by how the universe works and how we came into existence (and why, but that's another matter). Like everyone else, I was excited last July to read about the discovery of the Higgs Boson, also known as "the God Particle." But what does the Higgs really represent, what does it do, and what are its implications for the origins of "life, the universe, and everything" (you know, "the whole General Mishmash)? Sean Carroll makes it seem not only easy to understand, but positively thrilling. A physicist at Caltech, Carroll's sheer passion for his subject shines through the book. Playful chapter titles and subtitles let the reader in on the joke, such as Chapter Six entitled “Wisdom Through Smashing,” and subtitled “In which we learn how to discover new particles by colli...
Life, Books, and SFF