Publisher Description
Detective thriller meets astrophysics in this adventure into neutrinos and the scientists who pursue them.
For more than eighty years, brilliant and eccentric scientists around the world have been searching for the incredibly small bits of matter we call neutrinos. Trillions of these ghostly particles pass through our bodies every second, but they are so pathologically shy that neutrino hunters have to use Olympic-size pools deep underground and a gigantic cube of Antarctic ice to catch just a handful. Neutrinos may hold the secrets to the nature of antimatter and what the universe was like just seconds after the big bang, but they are extremely elusive and difficult to pin down—much like the adventurous scientists who doggedly pursue them.
In Neutrino Hunters, renowned astrophysicist and award-winning author Ray Jayawardhana takes us on a thrilling journey into the shadowy world of neutrinos and the colorful lives of those who chase them. Demystifying particle science along the way, Jayawardhana tells a detective story with cosmic implications—interweaving the tales of the irascible Casanova Wolfgang Pauli; the troubled genius Ettore Majorana, who disappeared without a trace; and Bruno Pontecorvo, whose defection to the Soviet Union caused a Cold War ruckus. Ultimately, Jayawardhana reveals just how significant these fast-moving particles are to the world we live in and why the next decade of neutrino hunting will redefine how we think about physics, cosmology, and our lives on Earth.
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“This is science
from the front lines: Ray Jayawardhana reports on the hunt for one of nature’s
most elusive particles, involving scientists around the world, from the frozen
plateaus of Antarctica to a nickel mine two kilometers below the forests of
northern Ontario. Their prey: a tiny, evanescent speck of energy—the
neutrino—that holds the key to some of the deepest puzzles in cosmology and
astrophysics. But it’s not just science: Neutrino Hunters also
illuminates the thinkers and tinkerers (some brilliant, some eccentric) who
have made the quest for the neutrino their life’s work. We are lucky to have
Dr. Jayawardhana—a first-rate storyteller who also knows the physics inside and
out—to guide us through the science and the personalities behind this
remarkable story.”—
Dan Falk, author of In Search of Time
