The Infinity Puzzle: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe

Written by Frank Close

Narrated by Jonathan Cowley

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a scientific gold rush as physicists raced to chart the inner workings of the atom. The stakes were high: the questions were big, and there were Nobel Prizes and everlasting glory to be won. Many mysteries of the atom came unraveled, but one remained intractable—what Frank Close calls the "Infinity Puzzle."

The problem was simple to describe. Although clearly very powerful, quantum field theory—the great achievement of the 1930s—was making one utterly ridiculous prediction: that certain events had an infinite probability of occurring.
 
The solution is known as renormalization, which enables theory to match what we see in the real world. It has been a powerful approach, conquering three of the four fundamental forces of nature, and giving rise to the concept of the Higgs boson, the now much-sought particle that may be what gives structure to the universe. The Infinity Puzzle charts the birth and life of the idea, and the scientists, both household names and unsung heroes, who realized it.

Based on numerous firsthand interviews and extensive research, The Infinity Puzzle captures an era of great mystery and greater discovery. Even if the Higgs boson is never found, renormalization—the pursuit of an orderly universe—has led to one of the richest and most productive intellectual periods in human history. With a physicist's expertise and a historian's care, Close describes the personalities and the competition, the dead ends and the sudden insights, in a story that will reverberate through the ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Mar 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452677088

Frank Close

Frank Close is the author of the award winning Half-Life, a biography of Bruno Pontecorvo, Antimatter, The Infinity Puzzle and Very Short Introductions to Nothing and Particle Physics. He is Professor of Physics at Oxford University and a former Head of Communications and Public Education at CERN. In 2014 he was awarded the Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society for science communication, and is the only scientist to have won an Association of British Science Writers' Prize on three occasions.

Reviews for The Infinity Puzzle

[bakudreamer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is good ( where else will you find " Recall that structure occurs because fermions are like cuckoos, whereas bosons are like penguins. " ) But I couldn't real all of it as I had to give it back , and the library here is screwed now ~