Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Large Hadron Collider

Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe

  • Book
  • © 2010

Overview

Authors:
  1. Martin Beech

    1. Regina, Canada

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • First popular science book to introduce and explain what the Large Hadron Collider is, how it works, and what it hopes to discover Discusses the possible risks and dangers associated with the LHC Explains without detailed mathematics how the properties of matter and observational cosmology indicate that particles beyond the standard model must exist

  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 37.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. The Story of Matter

    • Martin Beech
    Pages 1-40

  3. The World’s Most Complicated Machine

    • Martin Beech
    Pages 41-70

  4. The Standard Model, the Higgs, and Beyond

    • Martin Beech
    Pages 71-90

  5. The Big Bang and the First 380,000 Years

    • Martin Beech
    Pages 91-119

  6. Dark Matters

    • Martin Beech
    Pages 121-162

  7. Dark Energy and an Accelerating Universe

    • Martin Beech
    Pages 163-187

  8. The Waiting Game

    • Martin Beech
    Pages 189-222

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 223-236
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

It may at first seem that the world of subatomic physics is far removed from our every day lives. Isn’t it all just a waste of time and taxpayers' money? Hopefully, all who read this book will come to a different conclusion. Collider physics is all about our origins, and this aspect alone makes it worthy of our very best attention. The experiments conducted within the vast collider chambers are at the forefront of humanity’s quest to unweave the great tapestry that is the universe. Everything is connected. Within the macrocosm is the microcosm. By knowing how matter is structured, how atoms and elementary particles interact, and what forces control the interactions between the particles, we discover further clues as to why the universe is the way it is, and we uncover glimpses of how everything came into being.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in the process of coming online at CERN, is the world’s largest and most complex machine. It represents the pinnacle of human ingenuity, and its physical characteristics, costs, and workings astound us at every turn. We are literally humbled by the machine that has been produced through a grand international collaboration of scientists. This book is about what those scientists hope to discover with the LHC, for hopes do run high, and there is much at stake. Careers, reputations and prestigious science prizes will be realized, and possibly lost, in the wake of the results that the LHC will produce. And there are risks, real and imagined. The LHC will probe the very fabric of matter and it will help us understand the very weft and the weave of the universe.

Reviews

From the reviews:

“Beech (Univ. of Regina, Canada) has written this work for general readers who are interested in the construction and purpose of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). … it provides a very good description of the physics that the LHC hopes to explore. One can consider the work an examination of modern particle physics and cosmology that uses the LHC as a unifier. … Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergraduates.” (E. Kincanon, Choice, Vol. 48 (5), January, 2011)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Regina, Canada

    Martin Beech

About the author

Dr. Martin Beech is a full professor of astronomy at Campion College at The University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. He has published many scientific research papers on stellar structure and evolution and several books on astronomy. Asteroid 12343 has been named in recognition of his research on meteors and meteorites. This is Beech’s third book for Springer. He has already published Rejuvenating the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes (2008) and Terraforming: The Creating of Habitable Worlds (2009).

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation