Elusive
Frank Close
Basic Books, $30
There’s much more to the story of the Higgs boson than only one man named Higgs.
Despite the attraction of the “lone genius” narrative, it’s uncommon {that a} discovery could be attributed solely to the work of 1 scientist. At first, Elusive, a biography of Peter Higgs written by physicist and writer Frank Close, appears to play into that deceptive narrative: The e book is subtitled “How Peter Higgs solved the mystery of mass.”
But the e book shortly — and rightfully — veers from that path because it delves into the theoretical twists and turns that kicked off a decades-long quest for the particle often called the Higgs boson, culminating with its discovery in 2012 (SN: 7/28/12, p. 5). That detection verified the mechanism by which particles achieve mass. Higgs, of the University of Edinburgh, performed an important function in establishing mass’s origins, however he was one among many contributors.
The habitually modest and attention-averse Higgs makes the case towards himself because the one whiz behind the invention, the e book notes: According to Higgs, “my actual contribution was only a key insight right at the end of the story.”
The Higgs boson itself doesn’t bestow elementary particles with mass. Instead, its discovery confirmed the correctness of a idea cooked up by Higgs and others. According to that idea, elementary particles achieve mass by interacting with a discipline, now often called the Higgs discipline, that pervades all of house.
A paper from Higgs in 1964 was not the primary to suggest this course of. Physicists Robert Brout and François Englert simply barely beat him to it. And one other staff of researchers revealed the identical thought simply after Higgs (SN: 11/2/13, p. 4). Crucial groundwork had already been laid by but different scientists, and nonetheless others adopted up on Higgs’ work. Higgs, nonetheless, was the one to make the pivotal level that the mass mechanism implied the existence of a brand new, large particle, which may affirm the idea.
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Despite this difficult historical past, scientists slapped his identify on not simply the particle, the Higgs boson, but additionally the method behind it, historically known as the Higgs mechanism, however extra just lately and precisely termed the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism. (Higgs has reportedly proposed calling it the “ABEGHHK’tH mechanism,” utilizing the primary letter of the final names of the parade of physicists who contributed to it, Anderson, Brout, Englert, Guralnik, Hagen, Higgs, Kibble and ’t Hooft.) The postmortem of how Higgs’ identify attained outsize significance is likely one of the most fascinating sections of Elusive, revealing a lot in regards to the scientific sausage-making course of and the way it typically goes awry. Equally fascinating is the account of how the media embraced Higgs as a titan of physics primarily based on his affiliation with the boson, lofting him to a degree of fame that, for Higgs, felt unwelcome and unwarranted.
The e book admirably tackles the complexities of the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism and the way particles achieve mass, masking particulars which might be normally glossed over in hottest explanations. Close doesn’t shrink back from nitty-gritty physics phrases like “perturbation theory,” “renormalization” and “gauge invariance.” The thorniest bits are most acceptable for newbie physics aficionados who want a deeper understanding, and people bits might require a reread earlier than sinking in.
Higgs is famously not a fan of the limelight — he disappeared for a number of hours on the day he gained a Nobel Prize for his work on mass. The physicist typically appears to fade into the background of this biography as nicely, with a number of pages passing with no look or contribution from Higgs. Once the scientific neighborhood obtained wind of the potential of a brand new particle, the thought took on a lifetime of its personal, with experimental physicists main the cost. Higgs didn’t make many contributions to the topic past his preliminary perception, which he calls “the only really original idea I’ve ever had.”
Thus, the e book typically looks like a biography of a particle named Higgs, with the individual enjoying a backup function. Higgs is so reserved and so non-public that you just get the sense that Close nonetheless hasn’t fairly cracked him. While fascinating particulars of Higgs’ life and passions are revealed — for instance, his fervent objection to nuclear weapons — deeper insights are lacking. In the tip, Higgs is, identical to the particle named after him, elusive.
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