From molecules to stars much of the cosmic canvas can be painted in brushstrokes of primary color the protons neutrons and electrons we know so well But for meticulous detail we have to dip into exotic huesxleptons mesons hadrons quarks Bringing particle physics to life as few authors can Jeremy Bernstein here unveils nature in all its subatomic splendor In this graceful account Bernstein guides us through high-energy physics from the early twentieth century to the present including such highlights as the newly discovered Higgs boson Beginning with Ernest Rutherfordxs explanation of the nucleus a model of atomic structure emerged that sufficed until the s when new particles began to be theorized and experimentally confirmed In the postwar period the subatomic world exploded in a blaze of unexpected findings leading to the theory of the quark in all its strange and charmed variations An eyewitness to developments at Harvard University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton Bernstein laces his story with piquant anecdotes of such luminaries as Wolfgang Pauli Murray Gell-Mann and Sheldon Glashow Surveying the dizzying landscape of contemporary physics Bernstein remains optimistic about our ability to comprehend the secrets of the cosmosxeven as its mysteries deepen We now know that over eighty percent of the universe consists of matter we have never identified or detected A Palette of Particles draws readers into the excitement of a field where the more we discover the less we seem to know.
