PARTICLE physics is often presented as a kind of catalogue: here’s a set of quarks and other particles feeling a few different forces that are transmitted by another array of particles. The cataloguer approaches fundamental principles tentatively if at all. In Deep Down Things, Bruce Schumm takes a much more ambitious approach, aiming to give an insight into the gloriously profound ideas at the root of modern physics.
“The going may not be easy, but persistence will be rewarded,” Schumm says in the preface. Certainly, success will be rewarded. Although physicists often say that their discipline does not do “why”, and can only say how something…
