1st Edition

At the Root of Things The Subatomic World

By Palash Baran Pal Copyright 2015
    216 Pages 29 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    216 Pages
    by CRC Press

    At the Root of Things: The Subatomic World is a journey into the world of elementary particles—the basic constituents of all matter in the universe—and the nature of the interactions among them.

    The book begins with a summary of pre-quantum physics and later tackles quantum physics, which is essential for the study of elementary particles. The book discusses the emergence of quantum theory from studies in heat radiation and the photoelectric effect as well as developments that led to the concept of duality between particles and waves. Also discussed is how quantum theory helped to better understand the structure of atoms and the discovery of particles that were not constituents of atoms, such as the positron and the muon.

    Dozens of particles that were discovered experimentally in the 1950s and the 1960s are described along with fundamental particles—quarks and leptons. The book concludes with a discussion on fundamental interactions, the basic nature of quantum theories surrounding these interactions, and a discussion of how these interactions might be unified.

    At the Root of Things: The Subatomic World is written in non-technical language making it accessible to a broad audience. It helps outsiders understand the subject in a non-mathematical manner and inspires them to learn more about this interesting field.

    Conservation Laws
    Preamble
    Conservation of Momentum
    Conservation of Angular Momentum
    Conservation of Electric Charge
    The Beginning of Chemistry
    Conservation of Energy
    The Danger
    The Synthesis
    Relativity
    Noether’s Theorem

    Waves And Particles
    From Democritus to Dalton
    Newton, Huygens
    Young, Fresnel
    Maxwell
    Hertz, Lenard
    Planck
    Einstein
    Bose, Bohr
    de Broglie
    Jekyll, Hyde

    Insider’s Story of The Atomland
    Dalton
    Mendeleev
    Thomson
    Rutherford
    Mosley
    Bohr
    Heisenberg
    Schrödinger
    Pauli
    In Short

    Smaller than the Atom
    Preamble
    Dirac
    Pauli
    Yukawa
    Rabi’s question
    Lawrence’s legacy
    Gell-Mann, Zweig
    Feynman
    Richter, Ting, Lederman
    An Elementary Consideration

    Destination Unification
    Behind the Apparent
    Beyond the Apparent
    Give and Take
    The Symmetries
    Old Wine in a New Bottle
    The "Colors"
    The Pictorial Description
    Subtle is the Lord
    The Unifying Hand
    Untied Knots, Unexplored Horizons

    Suggested Reading

    Index

    Biography

    Palash B Pal is a senior professor at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kolkata. He was awarded a PhD from the Carnegie-Mellon University. Dr. Pal's research interests are in the area of particle physics. He has written various academic books, as well as popular-level books, and received the Rabindra Smriti Puroskar (Rabindranath Tagore memorial prize) from the Government of West Bengal. He has authored nearly 100 academic papers.

    "… a good introduction to particle physics for laypeople. … Pal excels at presenting difficult concepts of symmetry and quantum physics in an easy-to-understand manner without resorting to difficult mathematical equations. He succeeds in explaining esoteric mathematical concepts by using examples from everyday life that can be understood by anyone. The writing is lucid and entertaining, and the text’s larger than usual font is easy on the eyes. … What stands out is the insight that the book provides into how theories in science are developed and how much painstaking effort and hard work go into solving the mysteries of the universe and coming up with the answers that people sometimes take for granted. Summing Up: Recommended."
    CHOICE, December 2015