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Elusive
- Author
- Frank Close
- Narrator
- Richard Burnip
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- Publish Date
- 14 June 2022
- Run Time
- 10 hours 56 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
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.
Critics Review
-
“Rich, compelling, and surprising. Fundamental physics can be equal parts awe-inspiring and head-spinning, and Frank Close masterfully captures those qualities in this deeply satisfying tale of Peter Higgs's convoluted, and very human, journey through life and science.”
—Caleb Scharf, author of The Ascent of Information
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Frank Close
- Narrator
- Richard Burnip
- Duration
- 10 hours 56 minutes
- Release Date
- 14 June 2022
- ISBN
- 9781668612026
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- Genre
- Biography: science, technology and medicine, Quantum physics (quantum mechanics and quantum field theory), History of science
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.  
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