Dealing with the fundamental scientific question, "What is the world made of?", Leon Lederman, who shared the physics Nobel Prize in 1988, tells the story of the 2500-year quest for its answer, taking the reader on a journey from the philosophies of the ancient Greeks to the astonishing scientific discoveries of the last 50 years. It was a Greek philosopher in the 5th century BC who guessed that an invisible particle might be the basic building-block of all matter. He called it an "atom" - that which cannot be cut. The past five decades have brought the development of the most complex experimental tool ever built, the particle accelerator, which cuts matter into quarks and leptons, and reveals the forces that drive them. Lederman believes we may be close to discovering the ultimate atom - the "god particle" - which orchestrates the cosmic symphony, and that its discovery may reduce the laws of physics to an equation so simple that it can fit onto a T-shirt.
- ISBN10 0593033795
- ISBN13 9780593033791
- Publish Date 24 June 1993
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 January 2005
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Bantam Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 448
- Language English