A rocket scientist, a supersymmetry theorist, and a higgs hunter walk into a bar. What the Heck? happens next.
In recent years we have learned that the commonplace materials described by the scientific findings we have so far discovered portray only a tiny piece of a much greater universe–a universe ruled by tightly wound mysteries that appear to shape reality at both its largest and smallest sizes. That universe is now coming to be better understood. You will see how this has happened and how the shadows in the unknown slowly continue to be lit, identified, and explained.
Reality in the Shadows [or] What the Heck’s the Higgs? is a chronicle of the men and women who cast light on the mysteries of our existence; a look into some of the brilliant ideas that they presented, and a longer look at the new and even bigger mysteries that cry out for scientific explanation. It is an opportunity to become familiar with that now-famous particle–the Higgs Boson–that is both a telling-out of some very old questions and the beginning for hundreds of new and yet-to-be-answered ones.
This book is written for the lay person–someone interested in physics who may not have had a lot of technical or mathematical preparation. It was prepared to make the material engagingly easy to read and provides analogies and explanations that relate to the world we know.
Non-fiction. Published by YBK Publishers, New York, NY (2017). Available from many fine booksellers, including Amazon!
What People are Saying About “Reality in the Shadows”
All reviews can be found on the Amazon.com page for our book.
“… Jim Gates, Frank Blitzer, and Steve Sekula bring together physics and mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics in a way that tells a compelling story–the quest to understand our universe … Anyone who thinks all of the questions of modern physics have been solved and that there’s little left to ponder will be shocked by this book. It presents the history of physics as an important and helpful context to explain the many thorny mysteries that lie ahead, some of which are grounded in or helped by the 2012 discovery of the Higgs Boson. I would not be one bit surprised if in addition to engaging readers, this inspires more than a few young people to recast their future and invest themselves in this ever-enduring effort to understand our world, and by doing so, create the technologies and add to the knowledge that will take us all into the future.”
Paula Apsell
Senior Executive Producer, NOVA
Director WGBH Science Unit
WGBH Educational Foundation
“This is a delightful and readable portrayal of the beautiful laws of our universe, but it is also something more: an exciting adventure story about the creative thinkers whose journeys of discovery have led to our understanding.”
Walter Isaacson
Professor of History, Tulane University
Author of “Einstein” and “Leonardo da Vinci”
President, the Aspen Institute