TheMatter of Everything

Exploring ideas that many of us will not have encountered since leaving school, The Matter of Everything reinvigorates the history of particle physics, revealing the thrilling discoveries that have shaped our lives - often without us even knowing itThe Matter of Everything will appeal to readers of Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (over 230,000 copies TCM) and Leonard Susskind's The Theoretical Minimum book series (50,000 TCM), among other popular science titlesDr Suzie Sheehy is a physicist, academic and science communicator, as well as an award-winning public speaker and presenter. Her lecture for TEDxSydney, 'The Case for Curiosity Driven Research', has more than 1.8 million views on the TED websiteDr Suzie Sheehy is a physicist, academic and science communicator who divides her time between her research groups at the University of Oxford (where she is a Royal Society University Research Fellow) and the University of Melbourne (where she is Senior Lecturer). Her research focuses on developing new particle accelerators for future applications in areas such as medicine and energy.The astonishing story of twentieth-century physics, told through the twelve experiments that changed our world *SELECTED AS ONE OF WATERSTONES' BEST POPULAR SCIENCE BOOKS OF 2022* 'A splendid idea, vividly carried out: I enjoyed this book enormously' PHILIP PULLMAN 'A rich history of beautiful discoveries' ROBIN INCE 'An all-action thriller, laced with some of the most profound ideas humans have ever had' BRIAN ENO ----------- How did a piece of gold foil completely change our understanding of atoms? What part did a hot air balloon play in the discovery of cosmic rays? How did the experiments in the run-up to the Large Hadron Collider lead to the invention of the World Wide Web? Asking questions has always been at the heart of physics, our unending quest to understand the Universe and how everything in it behaves. How do we know all that we know about the world today? It's not simply because we have the maths - it's because we have done the experiments. Accelerator physicist Suzie Sheehy introduces us to the creative and curious people who, through a combination of genius, persistence and luck, staged the ground-breaking experiments of the twentieth century. From the serendipitous discovery of X-rays in a German laboratory, to the scientists trying to prove Einstein wrong (and inadvertently proving him right), The Matter of Everything takes us on a journey through the history of experiments that transformed our world.Accelerator physicist Suzie Sheehy tells the story of twentieth century physics through its twelve foundational experimentsA magical tour of the great experiments defining the most incredible century in physics . . . Sheehy seamlessly weaves the science and history with why this matters to all of us: as she expertly illustrates, our quest to understand the tiniest of particles has had an enormous impact on technology, health and society, reaching far beyond the labAn impassioned, elegant history of particle physics and its applications. Dr Sheehy adroitly brings together a glittering cast of characters - from the famous giants of the field to the unjustly overlooked scientists whose shoulders they stood on - to tell the story of the most fundamental of all sciencesA fabulous read, tracing the history of twelve experiments in particle physics from idea to impact, critically through the eyes of the scientists. The stories in and of themselves are fascinating, and together illustrate a larger story about science: the power of international collaboration, and competition, the generations its takes for science to translate from the lab to social benefit, the interdependency between basic and applied and the unwritten contribution of many women scientistsThis is storytelling at its very best and why I fell in love with physics. Sheehy's attention to detail shines through every story and yet there's a lightness of touch in the way she highlights the passion, drive, ingenuity and, ultimately, the sheer triumph of science in unlocking nature's secrets