In Search of the Ultimate Building Blocks

• An apology; 1. The beginning of the journey to the small: cutting paper; 2. To molecules and atoms; 3. The magic mystery of the quanta; 4. Dazzling velocities; 5. The elementary particle zoo before 1970; 6. Life and death; 7. The crazy kaons; 8. The invisible quarks; 9. Fields or bootstraps?; 10. The Yang-Mills bonanza; 11. Superconducting empty space: the Higgs-Kibble machine; 12. Models; 13. Colouring in the strong forces; 14. The magnetic monopole; 15. Gypsy; 16. The brilliance of the standard model; 17. Anomalies; 18. Deceptive perfection; 19. Weighing neutrinos; 20. The great desert; 21. Technicolor; 22. Grand unification; 23. Supergravity; 24. Eleven dimensional space-time; 25. Attaching the super string; 26. Into the black hole; 27. Theories that do not yet exist … ; 28. Dominance of the rule of the smallest.

'One of the most difficult hurdles to be overcome in explaining particle physics to the layperson is to find analogies by which difficult abstract concepts and advanced mathematics can be communicated simply and faithfully. It is just one of the hurdles over which Gerard 't Hooft leaps, apparently effortlessly, in this rattling good read … an entertaining mix of high theory and solid experimental facts, laced with his individual brand of dry and ingenuous humour … The style of this book is highly engaging and is simply and succinctly written.' John Ellis, Physics World