In search of the ultimate building blocks / Gerard 't Hooft.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hooft, G. 't, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Standard model (Nuclear physics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 191 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Foreword: an apology; 1 The beginning of the journey to the small: cutting paper; 2 To molecules and atoms; 3 The magical mystery of the quanta; 4 Dazzling velocities; 5 The elementary particle zoo before 1970; 6 Life and death; 7 The crazy kaons; 8 The invisible quarks; 9 Fields or bootstraps?; 10 The Yang-Mills bonanza; 11 Superconducting empty space: the Higgs-Kibble machine; 12 Models; 13 Coloring in the strong forces; 14 The magnetic monopole; 15 Gypsy; 16 The brilliance of the Standard Model; 17 Anomalies

18 Deceptive perfection19 Weighing neutrinos; 20 The Great Desert; 21 Technicolor; 22 Grand unification; 23 Supergravity; 24 Eleven-dimensional space-time; 25 Attaching the superstring; 26 Into the black hole; 27 Theories that do not yet exist...; 28 Dominance of the rule of the smallest; Glossary; Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-139-88220-1

1-107-26433-2

1-107-26375-1

1-107-26681-5

1-107-26325-5

1-107-26989-X

1-107-34085-3