The Large Hadron Collider
Subtitle: the greatest adventure in town and ten reasons why it matters as illustrated by the ATLAS experiment
By: author, Andrew J. Millington, OMNI Communications ; editors for ATLAS at CERN, Markus Nordberg, Thorsten Wengler, Robert McPherson, ATLAS at CERN, Switzerland
Contributors: Nordberg, M., editor; Wengler, Thorsten, editor; McPherson, Robert A. (Robert Anthony), 1964- editor
Publisher: World Scientific
Published: 2017
Place of publication: New Jersey
Language: eng
Number of pages: 277
ISBN-13: 9781786341365; 9781786341372
Subjects: Large Hadron Collider (France and Switzerland); Particles (Nuclear physics)
Description: "When the discovery of the Higgs Boson at CERN hit headlines in 2012, the world was stunned by this achievement of modern science. Less well known however, are the ways in which this advanced discovery has benefitted wider society. The Large Hadron Collider -- The Greatest Adventure in Town charts a path through the cultural, economic and medical gains from modern particle physics. It illustrates its messages through the ATLAS experiment, one of the two big experiments which found the Higgs particle. Moving away from in-depth physics analysis, it draws on the unparalleled interest in fundamental physics aroused by the discovery of the Higgs Boson, and relates it to developments in wide-ranging every-day use, including the internet, its successor 'The Grid', and modern-day cancer treatments. These wider gains of developing the 27 kilometre accelerator with its detectors are presented through first-hand interviews, and extensively illustrated throughout the book. Interviewees are leading physicists including successive heads of ATLAS, a top physics historian, a highly original economic strategist and the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and president of the Royal Society in London. These entertaining and informative insights provide both specialists and non-specialists a unique view into the world of research surrounding the ATLAS experiment, and its implications, and the extent and style of scientific collaboration necessary to achieve its successes"--
Table of contents: title: The physics itself and why it needed the LHC; title: The philosophical context, drawing on content presented by Professor Renn; title: The detector as an endeavour; title: The world comes together : spreading expertise and garnering resources; title: The IT "miracle" of the LHC/ATLAS GRID, following on the success of the WEB; title: The sociology of ATLAS and CERN; Models for a future world; title: The economic take on ATLAS : the options approach and industrial examples; title: Particle physics transforms medicine : latest examples from ATLAS and CERN; title: ATLAS and CERN as an inspiration for research and recruitment across science and technology; title: Further implications of the physics, and next steps, including extra dimensions of space, supersymmetry and dark matter.