A Palette of Particles
*Starred Review* Whenever physicist Ernst Mach’s early-twentieth-century colleagues began theorizing about atoms, the skeptical Austrian asked, “Have you seen one?” A century later, through visionary powers conferred by recent science, Bernstein sees not just atoms but their constituent parts! And here he shares his intellectual eyesight with his readers. Beginning with five basic particles (protons, neutrons, electrons, neutrinos, and photons) representing what he calls “the primary colors” of the subatomic realm, Bernstein moves on to the dozens of lesser-known particles (including muons, mesons, and quarks) in the wonderland of “secondary colors” manifest in cosmic rays and high-energy atom-smashers. Finally, readers enter a region in which theorists posit particles, such as the Higgs boson and the tachyon, in a world of “pastels,” where the hues are so muted that they challenge the limits of human observation. As a cutting-edge physicist, Bernstein understands the mathematical complexities of his subject. Mercifully, however, he pares away most of those complexities, thereby allowing general readers to share in the excitement of epoch-making science without shouldering the burden of rigorous analysis. Not merely lucid, Bernstein’s exposition is refreshingly human, sprinkled with anecdotes revealing the piquant personalities of pioneering scientists including Einstein, Pauli, and Gell-Mann. A must-read for armchair physicists. --Bryce Christensen