The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?

LEDERMAN, Leon with Dick Teresi.

$475.00

Item Number: 142078

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993.

First edition of this work by the Nobel Prize-winning scientist. Octavo, original half cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author opposite the title page, “To Wayne and Loise Wille We really miss you all. Enjoy! Leon Lederman.” An excellent association, as one of the recipients, Loise Wille, was a two time Pulitzer Prize winning Chicago journalist. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket.

The "God particle" of the title is Lederman's term for what other physicists call a Higgs boson--a hypothetical particle that might hold a key to the subatomic world of quarks and leptons. To find out if a Higgs boson indeed exists, this Nobel laureate in physics conceived of the Superconducting Super Collider, which, if constructed, would be the world's most powerful particle accelerator. "One of the clearest, most enjoyable new science books in years... explains the entire history of physics and cosmology. En route, you'll laugh so hard you won't realize how much you are learning" (San Francisco Examiner).