Review: Not the God Particle
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 29, 2014
The reason for my headline is that the Higgs boson has no part in this story; not even a cameo appearance. The book is described as a thriller, but I think a better description would be the book version of a Hollywood disaster film, including all the silliness, but also exciting if you do not think about it too hard. The book starts with a Dr Reinhardt facing Göring et al in Norway, and persuading them that while the atomic bomb was theoretically possible, the critical mass was a hundred times bigger than actual, and it was not possible to get that much U235. This is an interesting postulate. Historically, Werner Heisenberg did much the same thing, except the evidence seems to be that he made an incredible mistake for such a famous physicist, namely he only integrated neutron flux leaving normal to the surface. Leaving that aside, this part has little to do with the story.We then have the disasters. We start with Fukushima. I have no idea whether what is described really happened, but it reads excitingly. We then have our protagonist: Tom Halligan is offered a job as Director of CERN, where they are trying to find the Higgs boson, however, as soon as he arrives and the collider is started up, there is sabotage. There follows further major earthquakes, Istanbul, the Coral Sea and San Francisco, and it is argued that the collider is responsible. Tom is set up as the saboteur, Tom works out some of what is going on, the real saboteur wants to eliminate Tom, and there is the race to save the planet. Any more and I would spoil it.The science is totally loopy. The cause of the disasters is magnetism. Apparently the collider's net field is so powerful it does something to Earth's field, and this generates the earthquakes. The collider has two opposing loops, so there is no net field at a reasonable distance. Also, the relative permeability of rock is so close to 1 that the energy required to generate these earthquakes would make civilization impossible to sustain. So, don't think about the science. The descriptions of the disasters are good, and the surfing a tsunami is great. The conspiracy part is suitably complicated and there are surprises, the thriller part is not too bad, although the odd fight scene is a bit silly, and for me, not gripping. The writing is good, and despite the flaws, I found myself reading it keenly. Yes, it could be better, and given time, I suspect Danser will be well worth following.