Who Cares about Particle Physics?
Making Sense of the Higgs Boson, the Large Hadron Collider, and CERN
Pauline Gagnon
Reviews and Awards
"The author is good at explaining difficult notions, sometimes with surprising, even amusing everyday analogies - and there are no equations. This book is highly readable, copiously illustrated and attractively produced." -- Contemporary Physics
"A great general interest primer with a surprising and welcome feminist focus ... Most highly recommended" -- Times Higher Education
"I am giving this book four stars for its interesting insider content and particularly its insight into the way that the LHC is used that I have never seen elsewhere ... it's a book that's well worth reading if you have interest in this most fundamental of physical explorations." -- Brian Clegg, Popular Science
"Pauline Gagnon tells the wonderful scientific adventure of CERN that led to confirming the existence of the Higgs boson and that should bring a revolution in physics in elucidating big enigmas in the coming years such as the mystery of dark matter or the disappearance of antimatter." -- Pauline Gravel, science writer, Le Devoir newspaper, Montreal
Pauline Gagnon's book is a wonderfully detailed and comprehensive look at how scientists have pieced together our best understanding of the natural world, from accelerators to cosmology. If you want to know how particle physicists really work and think, this is a great place to start." -- Sean Carroll, author of The Particle at the End of the Universe
"I am fascinated. You should read it too; everybody can read it and understand it. Madame Gagnon has a knack for finding very efficient images to make us understand extremely complex phenomena." -- Catherine Perrin, host of Médium Large on Radio-Canada
"Pauline Gagnon is an inside-woman of the particle-physics world -- and this excellent book shows just that. The comprehensive account of where particle physics stands today is peppered by colourful metaphors that make even the most complex concepts accessible to everyone. On top of that, Gagnon gives the reader a glimpse into the inner workings of CERN and thoroughly describes how its huge international collaborations actually make new discoveries. This is a book that admirably delivers on the promise of taking the general reader seriously and a timely must-read if you want to get up to speed with Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider." -- Leonie Mueck, Senior Editor, Nature
"During the two-year search for Higgs in the LHC, Dr. Gagnon's lively and insightful blog was a key source for those outside the physics community who needed to keep track of the process and have it explained in layperson' terms. Her excellent book will now be essential reading for those seeking to understand why the discovery was important, and what might come next from the LHC." -- Robert Evans, former Reuter correspondent in Geneva
