How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch
In Search of the Recipe for Our Universe
Ratings1
Average rating3.5
15
In Search of the Recipe for Our Universe
Ratings1
Average rating3.5
NAMED A BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF 2021 BY KIRKUS * An acclaimed experimental physicist at CERN takes you on an exhilarating search for the most basic building blocks of our universe, and the dramatic quest to unlock their cosmic origins. "A fascinating exploration of how we learned what matter really is, and the journey matter takes from the Big Bang, through exploding stars, ultimately to you and me." (Sean Carroll) Carl Sagan once quipped, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” But finding the ultimate recipe for apple pie means answering some big questions: What is matter really made of? How did it escape annihilation in the fearsome heat of the Big Bang? And will we ever be able to understand the very first moments of our universe? In How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch, Harry Cliff—a University of Cambridge particle physicist and researcher on the Large Hadron Collider—sets out in pursuit of answers. He ventures to the largest underground research facility in the world, deep beneath Italy's Gran Sasso mountains, where scientists gaze into the heart of the Sun using the most elusive of particles, the ghostly neutrino. He visits CERN in Switzerland to explore the "Antimatter Factory," where the stuff of science fiction is manufactured daily (and we're close to knowing whether it falls up). And he reveals what the latest data from the Large Hadron Collider may be telling us about the fundamental nature of matter. Along the way, Cliff illuminates the history of physics, chemistry, and astronomy that brought us to our present understanding—and misunderstandings—of the world, while offering readers a front-row seat to one of the most dramatic intellectual journeys human beings have ever embarked on. A transfixing deep dive into the origins of our world, How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch examines not just the makeup of our universe, but the awe-inspiring, improbable fact that it exists at all.
Reviews with the most likes.
Based on the number of times I found myself exclaiming aloud some variation on the theme of "nifty!", this book is worth a read. The humour and wonder the author exhibits, the playful framing, greatly increased my enjoyment and comprehension, and the likelihood that I'll engage in a non-fiction topic I don't have an educational background in. I'd say the book is about equal parts science history, covering the people, theories and experiments of times past, and science present, introducing current people in various specialities, the current theories, and the impressive new tools available. I'll admit to finding the history portions more satisfying, seeing the contrast between what worked and didn't work when experimental proof arrives to vindicate one theory/angle of focus over another. The latter third of the book focusing heavily on possible theories and repeatedly bumping up against 'but here's why that doesn't totally fit, or here's why we may never find any evidence to prove it', was a bit unsatisfying, even if Cliff is right that there are still many exciting discoveries and avenues to pursue, that theories can be useful for disparate reasons. The subtitle on the cover allows me to say this without spoiler concerns: this is a book by a particle physicist (I know what that means now!) who freely acknowledges that we don't have the full recipe for the universe and may never, and again it's his indomitable curiousity for what we can discover now and in the future that stops that conclusion from being a downer.
Sidebar: I really appreciated the equality in acknowledgement of scientific discovery, not just the contributions of women in the history of the field, but where people of different nations made the same discovery at basically the same time, all are recognized, and there's a reverence for all instances of collaboration, as well as commiseration for those who were not properly acknowledged in their time.
