Particle Accelerators: From Big Bang Physics to Hadron Therapy

The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in 2012 and the Physics Nobel Prize 2013 awarded for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles has made the LHC, the most massive machine ever built by mankind, known by everybody. But why do physicists build more and more powerful particle accelerators and what do they want to find out? And are those only accelerators to produce knowledge, or do they also have some application in everyday life? A protagonist of scientific research traces a century of progresses, from the curious history of the first radiography to the special particle that today explains why matter weighs, and light yet doesn't.§§The book describes a fascinating adventure that also has extraordinary effects: on the one hand it allows one to explore the first billionth of a second of the life of the Universe, on the other hand it produces devices that can diagnose diseases and even cure cancer.§§In this book the discovery of the Higgs boson is placed in a broader context, accounting for the three different aspects of particle physics research: accelerators, detectors, theories. Moving stepwise from X-ray discovery, with many pages dedicated to the people who invented new accelerators, the author injects personal experiences of the everyday life of a physicist at CERN. Moreover, the consequences of these inventions and developments are described, starting from the construction of the Standard Model of particle physics to the unfolding of the hot Universe and to the applications in cancer diagnostics and therapy. This twofold thread supports the leitmotif of the book: physics is useful and beautiful .§§Advance appraisal:§§Accelerators go all the way from the unique and gargantuan Large Hadron Collider to thousands of smaller versions in hospitals and industry. Ugo Amaldi has experience across the range. He has worked at CERN and has for many years been driving the application of accelerators in medicine. This is a must-read introduction to this frontier of modern technology, written beautifully by a world expert.§Frank Close, Oxford