Suzie Sheehy: distinctive humans and disintegrating atoms.
THE MATTER OF EVERYTHING: Twelve experiments that changed our world, by Suzie Sheehy (Bloomsbury, $32.99)
“I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics," quipped the late physicist Richard Feynman, awarded a Nobel Prize for his work in quantum mechanics. His words surged to mind when I was at a party one time and overheard a group discussing homeopathy. "There's no point in explaining it - you don't understand quantum physics," one of them haughtily told an interloper.
Feynman, a towering figure in 20th-century physics, gets a glancing mention in Suzanne Sheehy's refreshing and readable history of modern physics, which tends to celebrate the lives of lesser-known scientists, many of them women. Even those who don't know their quarks from their gluons will be able to follow her on a journey through an emerging science, particle physics, via 12 experiments from 1895 to 2012.
The first of them came about through a mixture of luck and curiosity in a lab presided over by just one man, Wilhelm Röntgen. The last, leading to the discovery of the Higgs boson, required the collaboration of 110 countries and “roughly half of the 13,000 particle physicists in the world”, Sheehy writes.
この記事は New Zealand Listener の May 14, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は New Zealand Listener の May 14, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
First-world problem
Harrowing tales of migrants attempting to enter the US highlight the political failure to fully tackle the problem.
Applying intelligence to AI
I call it the 'Terminator Effect', based on the premise that thinking machines took over the world.
Nazism rears its head
Smirky Höcke, with his penchant for waving with a suspiciously straight elbow and an open palm, won't get to be boss of either state.
Staying ahead of the game
Will the brave new world of bipartisanship that seems to be on offer with an Infrastructure Commission come to fruition?
Grasping the nettle
Broccoli is horrible. It smells, when being cooked, like cat pee.
Hangry? Eat breakfast
People who don't break their fast first thing in the morning report the least life satisfaction.
Chemical reaction
Nitrates in processed meats are well known to cause harm, but consumed from plant sources, their effect is quite different.
Me and my guitar
Australian guitarist Karin Schaupp sticks to the familiar for her Dunedin concerts.
Time is on my side
Age does not weary some of our much-loved musicians but what keeps them on the road?
The kids are not alright
Nuanced account details how China's blessed generation has been replaced by one consumed by fear and hopelessness.