by Jack Steinberger, Springer. Hardback ISBN 3540213295, €39.95 (£30.50, $49.95).
Learning About Particles is an interesting excursion for the reader through the past 50 years of particle physics – 50 privileged years, as one is aptly reminded by the subtitle. Our guide is Jack Steinberger, undoubtedly one of the protagonists of those years, who offers a personal account of the historical and scientific evolution of the field, interspersed with autobiographical notes. He also makes sociological comments and expresses political views, but always gracefully, even when it is obvious that they must bring to memory particularly sad events.
The book follows a chronological order, which at times is slightly violated in favour of more logical organization by topic to improve readability. It unfolds at two paces: pleasantly accurate with generous detail of experiments from the early years, and slightly rushed by the time experiments at the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider are reached.
Particularly enjoyable are the first four chapters, which recount his years as graduate student, post-doc and young faculty in various prestigious institutions. Descriptions of early experiments and of the theoretical interests of the time are wisely mixed with personal recollections and anecdotes about the “gurus” of physics, and about the author’s young colleagues who later became very famous. The history is a little more difficult to follow into the next chapter, however, when dealing with strange particles.
Two chapters are dedicated to neutrinos, marking two moments of their “interaction” with Steinberger. After the first, the reader feels disappointed – more details of the conception of the fundamental “two-neutrino experiment” would have been expected, as would some “inside stories”. Perhaps the disappointment stems from anticipation created earlier in the book when a future collaboration between the then Captain Lederman and the then Private Steinberger is mentioned. As for inside stories, Steinberger confesses that initially he did not believe in neutral currents and this (quite rightly!) cost him a few bottles of good wine.
In the second of the two neutrino chapters, the steps towards the present understanding of the nucleon structure are retraced clearly – although with some haste – and the author brings the reader to present times with neutrino masses and oscillations. The intervening chapter on CP violation is an authoritative account of the achievements in the field since its beginning in 1957. Here Steinberger enumerates the spectacular accomplishments of the Standard Model within the context of the LEP experiments, perhaps with a tinge of nostalgia for earlier times.
It is difficult to identify precisely the intended audience for this book. It seems to be aimed at a variety of readers, not all necessarily from a scientific background, as the explanations given from time to time in the footnotes imply. This is, however, not done consistently and the result is often unsatisfactory. Furthermore, the occurrence of a few misprints at unfortunate places might prove disconcerting for the untrained reader.
Regardless of the audience, however, the book touches clearly upon the building blocks of the Standard Model and communicates 50 years of passion for physics and its intricacies – a lesson for young researchers. It also speaks of a passion for other, and far more common, sources of enjoyment in life such as music and mountains – a lesson for physicists in general!
