Saturday 9 August 2014

Particle Physics - A Very Short Introduction by Frank Close


As a good physicist, I definitely should one day talk a bit about it here. I've talked a bit about science already in this blog, but never about my beloved physics. So here it goes. I actually just finished reading this book, called Particle Physics - A Very Short Introduction, which was written by a British physicist called Frank Close, and the book is indeed what it says it is: A very short introduction to particle physics. I've decide to read it mainly because I like Frank's books very much. Well, this was only the second book I've read from him, but the thing is that I was very impressed by the first book I read from him a couple of years ago about antimatter, which is definitely still one of the best scientific books I've read so far. I don't read scientific books as often as I read some other stuff, but I do read them with certain frequency (possibly 3 or 4 each year on average) and I have two favorite authors that I like very much, which are Frank Close and Brian Greene. Well, Brian Green might be a bit better I would say. His books are more full of details and do go much deeper into stuff usually. But Frank does a very good job also. His books are not very very deep, but they do work very well as introductions. As very good introductions. I simply like the fact that when I read him I immediately get the impression that he not simply knows what he is saying, but he knows exactly how to explain it very well. The explanations he makes about complicated issues does satisfy me a lot, because in the end I really understand and get precisely the message he is trying to say. This might sound a bit obvious, as every author should do it, but what I see in physics sometimes is quite the opposite. Many books I read about quantum mechanics, theory of relativity and all sort of stuff like that really let me with the impression that the author simply wanted to demonstrate that he masters some difficult knowledge rather than really being interested into developing a nice way to help the reader to access the same knowledge. That's definitely not Frank's case. He does usually says in his books a bit about history, a lot about the physics, a lot about the engineering that is involved in discovering the physics that he talks about, a lot about the ongoing debates and future perspectives, and so on. Also another good thing is that, like a good British man, he usually doesn't bullshit about in his books. He is very objective and says directly what he wants to say or what he needs to say about something so that we can understand it well. He doesn't have the stile of "wonders of the universe" typical of some other authors like Brian Cox, for example.
Let's go to the book then. Although I am a physicist, my PhD was in photonics and not in particle physics, so I am not an expertise on the matter. Well, I did study a lot about lasers and optics in general, so I got a lot to photons and electrons sometimes, but that's about it. No muons or pions whatsoever. But anyway, I usually like physics in general, especially particle physics and quantum mechanics, so I gave it a go on this book. I did like it very much, because it does an very good overview of particle physics going as deep as necessary to understand the basic concepts. I basically liked the way the book was written, going from the basic physical concepts and metrics necessary to properly talk about particles, all the technologies involved in detecting particles, the physics of particles, the current open questions and possible ways around it. Well, that's pretty much about it. I would say that the other book I read from Frank about Antimatter was a bit better because it does go deeper about things. But still, this one is only an introduction but it is a very good one. I am going now for other book I have from him which is about "nothing". Yes, the physics of nothing. But this is a story for other time. I still have to wait to see.

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