Elusive, Frank Close
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Elusive
How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass

Author: Frank Close

Narrator: Richard Burnip

Unabridged: 10 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 06/14/2022

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

The first major biography of Peter Higgs, revealing how a short burst of work changed modern physics On July 4, 2012, the announcement came that one of the longest-running mysteries in physics had been solved: the Higgs boson, the missing piece in understanding why particles have mass, had finally been discovered. On the rostrum, surrounded by jostling physicists and media, was the particle’s retiring namesake—the only person in history to have an existing single particle named for them. Why Peter Higgs? Drawing on years of conversations with Higgs and others, Close illuminates how an unprolific man became one of the world’s most famous scientists. Close finds that scientific competition between people, institutions, and states played as much of a role in making Higgs famous as Higgs’s work did.  A revelatory study of both a scientist and his era, Elusive will remake our understanding of modern physics.  

Author Bio

Frank Close is an eminent research theoretical physicist in nuclear and particle physics. Currently Emeritus Professor of Physics at Oxford University and a Fellow of Exeter College, he was formerly the Head of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He served as Chair of the UK Space Exploration Working Group 2007 which culminated with Tim Peake's launch to the ISS. He is the author of several books, including the bestselling Lucifer's Legacy (2000), and his highly acclaimed biography of the Higgs Boson Elusive (2022). His other books include Antimatter (2018), Neutrino (2011), Eclipse: Journeys to the Dark Side of the Moon (2017), and A Very Short Introduction to Nuclear Physics (2015), Particle Physics (2004), and Nothing (2009). In 2013, Professor Close was awarded the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for communicating science and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021.

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