المراجعة التحريرية | This third edition of Allday's excellent text exploring particle physics and astrophysics has been updated to include the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle, massive Neutrinos, and gravitational waves. Allday (Royal Hospital School, UK) begins with a primer on the standard model and relativity in particle physics; a very easily comprehended section explains the Higgs mechanism. Allday writes in a lucid style, making the content accessible even to first-year undergraduates; he also writes engagingly enough that advanced graduate students will be intrigued as well. He occasionally uses clever analogies to everyday situations, such as a game of cricket, to elucidate abstract concepts such as Feynman's formulation of quantum mechanics using Lagrangian mechanics and minimizing of action. Mathematical calculations are interspersed with plenty of text and explanations to reduce abstraction. What makes the book especially valuable is the inclusion of historical context and philosophical reflections, which tie the material together to present a big picture, helping inspire students to further study. Overall, this is an excellent volume that relates many fields of physics and demonstrates their application in the fields of astrophysics and cosmology. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. |
عن المؤلف | Jonathan Allday has taught physics in schools for 30 years, latterly at the Royal Hospital School in the UK. After completing his Natural Sciences degree at Cambridge, he moved to Liverpool University for a PhD in particle physics, working on one of the last bubble chamber experiments at CERN. During this time, he was invited to join a group developing particle physics resources and syllabuses for examination at 16-18 level in the UK. From this work came the conviction that a book on particle physics and cosmology could be written that covered the material at a more detailed level than traditional popular accounts, yet still be accessible to those with a school-level understanding of maths and physics. Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang was the result. Dr Allday has since gone on to write a range of other books on the Apollo missions, quantum theory and textbooks for schools. He regularly contributes articles to Physics Review magazine and spent a period as co-editor of Physics Education. He lives just outside Ipswich in the UK with his wife and three children who are much sportier than he is, and one of whom is currently studying Physics at Bristol University. |