{"product_id":"mass-the-quest-to-understand-matter-from-greek-atoms-to-quantum-fields-9780198759713","title":"Mass: The Quest to Understand Matter from Greek Atoms to Quantum Fields","description":"Everything around us is made of 'stuff', from planets, to books, to our own bodies. Whatever it is, we call it matter or material substance. It is solid; it has mass. But what is matter, exactly? We are taught in school that matter is not continuous, but discrete. As a few of the philosophers\u003cbr\u003eof ancient Greece once speculated, nearly two and a half thousand years ago, matter comes in 'lumps', and science has relentlessly peeled away successive layers of matter to reveal its ultimate constituents. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSurely, we can't keep doing this indefinitely. We imagine that we should eventually run up against some kind of ultimately fundamental, indivisible type of stuff, the building blocks from which everything in the Universe is made. The English physicist Paul Dirac called this 'the dream of\u003cbr\u003ephilosophers'. But science has discovered that the foundations of our Universe are not as solid or as certain and dependable as we might have once imagined. They are instead built from ghosts and phantoms, of a peculiar quantum kind. And, at some point on this exciting journey of scientific\u003cbr\u003ediscovery, we lost our grip on the reassuringly familiar concept of mass. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHow did this happen? How did the answers to our questions become so complicated and so difficult to comprehend? In \u003cem\u003eMass\u003c\/em\u003e Jim Baggott explains how we come to find ourselves here, confronted by a very different understanding of the nature of matter, the origin of mass, and its implications for our\u003cbr\u003eunderstanding of the material world. Ranging from the Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus, and their theories of atoms and void, to the development of quantum field theory and the discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle, he explores our changing understanding of the nature of matter, and\u003cbr\u003ethe fundamental related concept of mass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jim Baggott\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press, USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/04\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 320\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.35lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.50h x 6.20w x 1.30d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780198759713\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 05\/15\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/15\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJim Baggott, \u003cem\u003eFreelance science writer\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJim Baggott is a freelance science writer. He was a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Reading but left to work with Shell International Petroleum Company and then as an independent business consultant and trainer. His many books include \u003cem\u003eOrigins: The Scientific Story of Creation\u003c\/em\u003e (OUP, 2015), \u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eHiggs: The Invention and Discovery of the 'God Particle'\u003c\/em\u003e (OUP, 2012), \u003cem\u003eA Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments\u003c\/em\u003e (OUP, 2011) and \u003cem\u003eA Beginner's Guide to Reality\u003c\/em\u003e (Penguin, 2005), \u003cem\u003eQuantum Reality: The Quest for the Real Meaning of Quantum Mechanics -- A Game of Theories\u003c\/em\u003e (OUP, 2020), and \u003cem\u003eThe Quantum\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eCookbook: Mathematical Recipes for the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics\u003c\/em\u003e (OUP, 2020).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press, USA","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":40262036553843,"sku":"9.7802E+12","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/products\/img_341de8bd-5112-4505-993a-2138a1a9cfbd.jpg?v=1657634357","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/products\/mass-the-quest-to-understand-matter-from-greek-atoms-to-quantum-fields-9780198759713","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}