Beyond the Nanoworld : Quarks, Leptons, and Gauge Bosons

Beyond the world of atoms, at scales smaller than the smallest nuclei, a new world comes into view, populated by an array of colorful elementary particles: strange and charmed quarks, muons and neutrinos, gluons and photons, and many others, all interacting in beautifully intricate patterns. Beyond the Nanoworld tells the story of how this new realm was discovered. From the first discoveries of subatomic structure to the present-day hunt for the Higgs particle, the reader is invited to follow the twin branches of experimental and theoretical research as they wind through the twentieth century, culminating in the most successful physical theory of all time: the standard model of particle physics.