We are living in a Golden Age of Physics. Forty or so years ago, three brilliant, yet little-known scientists - an American, a Dutchman, and an Englishman - made breakthroughs which later inspired the construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva: a 27 kilometre-long machine that cost ten billion dollars, took twenty years to build, and finally discovered a particle consistent with the Higgs boson. The Infinity Puzzle is the inside story of those forty years of resea...

**The thrilling and terrifying seventy-year story—"kinetic, dramatic, and compulsively readable" (Patchen Barss)—of the physicists that deciphered the atom and created the hydrogen bombA Guardian Best Book of the Year**Although Henri Becquerel didn’t know it at the time, he changed history in 1896 when he left photographic plates and some uranium rocks in a drawer. The rocks emitted something that exposed the plates: it was the first documented evidence of spontane...

Nuclear physics began long before the identification of fundamental particles, with J. J. Thomson's discovery of the electron at the end of the 19th century, which implied the existence of a positive charge in the atom to make it neutral. In this Very Short Introduction Frank Close gives an account of how this area of physics has progressed, including the recognition of how heavy nuclei are built up in the cores of stars and in supernovae, the identification of quarks and gluons, ...

Frank Close breaks down complex concepts in physics in this collection of three of his bestselling books. Including Neutrino, Antimatter, and The Void, this set brings to life the fascinating science of particle physics, neutrinos, antimatter, and nothing. Combing the knowledge of a renowned physicist with the art of a skilled writer, enter the world of physics in an enthralling and readable way.

'Everything about this story is astounding' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times"Trinity" was the codename for the test explosion of the atomic bomb in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. Trinity is now also the extraordinary story of the bomb's metaphorical father, Rudolf Peierls; his intellectual son, the atomic spy, Klaus Fuchs, and the ghosts of the security services in Britain, the USA and USSR.Against the background of pre-war Nazi Germany, the Sec...

Physicist Frank Close takes the reader to the frontiers of science in a vividly told investigation of revolutionary science and enterprise from the seventeenth century to the present. He looks at what has been meant by theories of everything, explores the scientific breakthroughs they have allowed, and shows the far-reaching effects they have had on crucial aspects of life and belief. Theories of everything, he argues, can be described as those which draw on all relevant branches of knowle...

What are neutrinos? Why does nature need them? What use are they?Neutrinos are perhaps the most enigmatic particles in the universe. Formed in certain radioactive decays, they pass through most matter with ease. These tiny, ghostly particles are formed in millions in the Sun and pass through us constantly. For a long time they were thought to be massless, and passing as they do like ghosts they were not regarded as significant. Now we know they have a very small mass, and there are strong ...

What is 'nothing'? What remains when you take all the matter away? Can empty space - a void - exist? This Very Short Introduction explores the science and the history of the elusive void: from Aristotle who insisted that the vacuum was impossible, via the theories of Newton and Einstein, to our very latest discoveries and why they can tell us extraordinary things about the cosmos.Frank Close tells the story of how scientists have explored the elusive void, and the rich discoveries that the...

"This is Frank Close's masterpiece — his best book, and one of the very best introductions to physics for the layperson. Close is a master expositor." — The (London) Sunday Times"Close's writing is beguiling, mingling personal and historical anecdote with carefully measured doses of exposition in such a way as to guide the reader painlessly into rather deep intellectual waters." — N**ature"Life, intrinsically related to asymmetries, is the theme of ...

During the 20th century, scientists discovered what the Universe is made of; as the 21st century begins, they are preparing experiments to find out how it came to be like this. This great adventure, which will involve a metaphorical journey back in time to within a billionth of a second of the Big Bang, is the latest stage in the quest to understand the nature of the matter that makes our Universe and the forces that govern it. The Particle Odyssey takes the read...

Antimatter explores a strange mirror world, where particles have identical yet opposite properties to those that make up the familiar matter we encounter everyday; where left becomes right, positive becomes negative; and where, should matter and antimatter meet, the two annihilate in a blinding flash of energy that makes even thermonuclear explosions look feeble by comparison. It is an idea long beloved of science-fiction stories--but here, renowned science writer Frank Close show...

What is 'the void'? What remains when you take all the matter away? Can empty space - 'nothing' - exist? This little book explores the science and the history of the elusive void: from Aristotle who insisted that the vacuum was impossible, via the theories of Newton and Einstein, to our very latest discoveries and why they can tell us extraordinary things about the cosmos. Frank Close tells the story of how scientists have explored the elusive void, and the rich discoveries that they have ...