Subatomic Particles (Sal)

Steven Weinberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979. He is a prolific writer and has published a number of "industrial-strength" physics texts. This book is intended for a general audience. It details the historical evolution of scientific discovery of the fundamental building blocks of matter - electrons, protons and neutrons. Only one chapter of 14 pages deals with quarks and leptons, so the title is somewhat misleading (hence 4 stars). Nonetheless, the historical narrative in this book is fascinating and would be of interest to laymen, physicists, chemists, and engineers. The experimentation upon which atomic theory is built is discussed in detail and the evolution of the periodic table would be of particular interest to chemists. Weinberg fleshes out the science with a delightful discussion of the characters and institutions that played a central role in this endeavor. A SPECIAL NOTE TO FEYNMAN DEVOTEES: Steven Weinberg writes with the same sense of wit and wonder that were the hallmarks of America's favorite bongo player, safecracker, and quantum electrodynamicist. If you liked Richard you'll like Steven.

In this book we see the older Weinberg who still thought in terms of mathematics and experiment and not in terms of defending his theories against an uncertain future. This book I can give to the younger generation in conscience and say : be wise and read this and learn.

This book is a deviation from the author's usual books about complex cosmological issues. The Discovery of Subatomic Particles is accessible to anyone, an easy read revealing much about scientific method. It's more a history of how scientists and physicists with rather rudimentary tools devised innovative ways to probe and measure atomic particles with surprisingly accurate results. This book will be appreciated by the mechanically inclined. For the mathematically inclined, you will see in the appendices calculations developed in such a way that requires only a basic background in algebra to understand. The author guides the reader through the history of processes that refined our understanding of the subatomic world. The subject matter is covered in a logical timeline progression and consistent format. Quantum theory is outside the scope of this book, but Niels Bohr is included in the history for using some of the discoveries to formulate his view of electron dynamics. The reader will gain a higher appreciation of how much can be measured and discovered using the basic tools and instruments available at a given level of scientific development. Extensive appendices amount to a concise development of fundamental physics, itself creating much value owning this book. My favorite appendix has the author describing how much of Rutherford's formula for the scattering of alpha particles can be derived through simple dimensional analysis, continuing the historic application of basic tools to analyze, measure, and discover subatomic particles. The appendices give the technical details supporting much of the scientific development described so well in the main text. Steven Weinberg's book, The Discovery of Subatomic Particles, is an easy read that can be appreciated by anyone.

I wavered between four or five stars and finally gave the authors, a brilliant scientist, the benefit of the doubt. The book is actually a chronological review of the exploration of the atom. Starting with electricity and the discovery of the electron, we then go on to weighing the atoms to the discovery of the nucleus. A truly fascinating observation of Einstein's work notes that the "energy released by a moving body is larger than when at rest by an amount proportional to the square of its velocity"..e=mc2 was originally expresses as m=e/c2.After the nucleus we descend further into all the subatomic particles. One must remember that although this book is a revised edition, the 1983 original version seems almost innocent in many of its assumptions. A LONG appendix is provided as much for explanation as for reference.