Scientific American Book Club
Once repairs are complete, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is poised to usher in a new era of discovery in particle physics. Featuring a foreword by Nobel laureate Leon Lederman, The Quantum Frontier guides us through the mysteries that this giant proton collider may resolve, as well as the machine itself.
Don Lincoln begins by reviewing the Standard Model, the framework of currently known subatomic particles. Although impressive, this framework leaves unanswered an array of key issues that researchers hope the LHC will address—from the strengths and ranges of nature’s fundamental forces to the possible existence of extra dimensions. Among the theories to be tested at the LHC, Lincoln focuses on three: the idea that the hypothesized Higgs boson (and its field) act to assign mass to all other particles; the notion that supersymmetry can account for the specific masses of observed particles; and the possible underlying structure of quarks. (He also debunks any suspicion that the LHC will spawn Earth-devouring black holes.)
Moving from theoretical to experimental matters, Lincoln devotes two chapters to the LHC apparatus—one on the accelerator itself and the other on the four big particle detectors at work inside it. As we learn, colliding protons at a top energy of 14 trillion electron-volts involves some ingenious planning. In accessible terms, Lincoln describes, for example, how the LHC’s 9,300 magnets—arrayed along a circular track 17 miles in circumference—accelerate protons to 99.9999991% the speed of light. He also explains the specific tasks of the ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb detectors. In the final chapter Lincoln predicts where physics will go once the LHC has told us all it can.
The Quantum Frontier is a first-rate overview of high-energy physics’ most powerful tool to date.
