Tento autor si klade za cíl učinit vědu srozumitelnou pro širší publikum prostřednictvím svých přednášek a spisů. Jeho práce se vyznačuje snahou propojit složité vědecké koncepty s přístupným jazykem. Prostřednictvím svého psaní se věnuje popularizaci vědy a jejímu přiblížení laikům. Jeho přístup zdůrazňuje jasnost a poutavost při vysvětlování vědeckých témat.
Kniha je působivým průvodcem po fundamentálních částicích, z nichž je stvořen vesmír. Nechává nás nahlédnout do fascinujícího světa aktuálních objevů částicové fyziky a ukazuje, jak tyto objevy mění naše chápání světa. Podíváme se do nitra atomu, seznámíme se s kvarky, elektrony nebo tajemným neutrinem. Nechybí ani pátrání po antihmotě a diskuse o počtu dimenzí vesmíru.
A Very Short Introduction
The book offers a comprehensive and updated introduction to fundamental particles, reflecting on the groundbreaking discovery of the Higgs boson. Frank Close revises his classic work to explore the implications of this discovery and enhance understanding of particle physics. Through engaging explanations, he delves into the nature of the universe's building blocks, making complex concepts accessible to readers.
Forty or so years ago, three physicists - Peter Higgs, Gerard 't Hooft, and James Bjorken - made the spectacular breakthroughs that led to the world's largest experiment, the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Played out against a backdrop of high politics, low behaviour, and billion dollar budgets, this is the story of their work and its implications.
The memo landed on Kim Philby's desk in Washington, DC, in July 1950. Three months later, Bruno Pontecorvo, a physicist at Harwell, Britain's atomic energy lab, disappeared without a trace. When he re-surfaced six years later, he was on the other side of the Iron Curtain...One of the most brilliant scientists of his generation, Pontecorvo was privy to many secrets: he had worked on the Anglo- Canadian arm of the Manhattan Project, and quietly discovered a way to find the uranium coveted by nuclear powers. Yet when he disappeared MI5 insisted he was not a threat. Now, based on unprecedented access to archives, letters and surviving family members and scientists, award-winning writer and physics professor Frank Close pieces together an answer to whether Pontecorvo's defection did indeed bring an end to a life of spycraft -and exposes the truth of a man irrevocably marked by the advent of the atomic age and the Cold War...
Drawing on years of conversations with Higgs and others, Close illuminates how an unprolific man became one of the world's most famous scientists. Close finds that scientific competition between people, institutions, and states played as much of a role in making Higgs famous as Higgs's work did
Neutrinos are as near to nothing as anything we know, and so elusive that they are almost invisible. Frank Close tells the story of the neutrino, explaining their growing significance, and looking at how neutrino astronomy is at the threshold of enabling us to look into distant galaxies and to finding echoes of the Big Bang.
"Trinity" explores the test explosion of the atomic bomb in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, and delves into the lives of Rudolf Peierls, his intellectual son Klaus Fuchs, and the security services of Britain, the USA, and the USSR. Set against the backdrop of pre-war Nazi Germany, World War II, and the Cold War, it reveals how Peierls welcomed Fuchs into his family and laboratory, only to face betrayal. The narrative details Fuchs's transformation into a spy, his motivations, and the sensitive information he relayed to Soviet contacts during his time with Peierls at the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos in 1944. Author Frank Close, a distinguished nuclear physicist, uniquely combines scientific explanation with espionage. After returning to Britain undetected in August 1946, Fuchs became pivotal in the UK's nuclear weapons development. Close captures the tense atmosphere at Harwell, the nuclear physics lab near Oxford, and the complex relationships among key figures. He presents new evidence regarding the critical VENONA decryptions and illustrates how MI5 and the FBI's errors gradually tightened the noose around Fuchs. The Soviet Union's first nuclear explosion in August 1949 shocked the world, and by 1951, a US Congressional Committee labeled Fuchs as the most damaging spy in history. This account provides a comprehensive look at these pivotal events and the tragic figure at their center.
Originally published: Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Antimatter is a weird opposite to matter that will destroy everything it touches; it could be the ultimate source of power or weapon of mass destruction. This book explains what it is and what it can do
In Particle A Very Short Introduction , best-selling author Frank Close provides a compelling and lively introduction to the fundamental particles that make up the universe. The book begins with a guide to what matter is made up of and how it evolved, and goes on to describe the fascinating and cutting-edge techniques used to study it. The author discusses particles such as quarks, electrons, and the neutrino, and exotic matter and antimatter. He also investigates the forces of nature, accelerators and detectors, and the intriguing future of particle physics. This book is essential reading for general readers interested in popular science, students of physics, and scientists at all levels.About the Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
