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The Higgs Boson and Beyond
Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
The discovery of the Higgs boson is a triumph of modern physics. The hunt for the Higgs was the subject of wide media attention due to the cost of the project, the complexity of the experiment, and the importance of its result. And, when it was announced with great fanfare in 2012 that physicists has succeeded in creating and identifying this all-important new particle, the discovery was celebrated around the world.
And yet, virtually no one who read that news could tell you what, exactly, the Higgs boson was, and why its discovery was so important that we had to spend 10 billion dollars and build the single largest and most complex device in the history of mankind in order to find it. When you understand the details, this story ranks as one of the most thrilling in the history of modern science.
Award-winning theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, a brilliant researcher as well as a gifted speaker who excels in explaining scientific concepts to the public, is perfectly positioned to tell this story. In this 12-lecture masterpiece of scientific reporting, you'll learn everything you need to know to fully grasp the significance of this discovery, including the basics of quantum mechanics; the four forces that comprise the Standard Model of particle physics; how these forces are transmitted by fields and particles; and the importance of symmetry in physics.
You also get an in-depth view of the Large Hadron Collider - the largest machine ever built, and the device responsible for finally revealing the concept of the Higgs boson as reality. By the end, you'll understand how the Higgs boson verifies the final piece in the Standard Model of particle physics, and how its discovery validates and deepens our understanding of the universe.
The discovery of the Higgs boson is a triumph of modern physics. The hunt for the Higgs was the subject of wide media attention due to the cost of the project, the complexity of the experiment, and the importance of its result. And, when it was announced with great fanfare in 2012 that physicists has succeeded in creating and identifying this all-important new particle, the discovery was celebrated around the world.
And yet, virtually no one who read that news could tell you what, exactly, the Higgs boson was, and why its discovery was so important that we had to spend 10 billion dollars and build the single largest and most complex device in the history of mankind in order to find it. When you understand the details, this story ranks as one of the most thrilling in the history of modern science.
Award-winning theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, a brilliant researcher as well as a gifted speaker who excels in explaining scientific concepts to the public, is perfectly positioned to tell this story. In this 12-lecture masterpiece of scientific reporting, you'll learn everything you need to know to fully grasp the significance of this discovery, including the basics of quantum mechanics; the four forces that comprise the Standard Model of particle physics; how these forces are transmitted by fields and particles; and the importance of symmetry in physics.
You also get an in-depth view of the Large Hadron Collider - the largest machine ever built, and the device responsible for finally revealing the concept of the Higgs boson as reality. By the end, you'll understand how the Higgs boson verifies the final piece in the Standard Model of particle physics, and how its discovery validates and deepens our understanding of the universe.
6 pages, Audible Audio
First published February 5, 2015
33 people are currently reading
968 people want to read
About the author
Sean Carroll
37 books2,692 followersSean Carroll is a physicist and philosopher at Johns Hopkins University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993. His research focuses on spacetime, quantum mechanics, complexity, and emergence. His book The Particle at the End of the Universe won the prestigious Winton Prize for Science Books in 2013. Carroll lives in Baltimore with his wife, writer Jennifer Ouellette.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
October 3, 2022
While I find much of the theoretical basis for cosmology / quantum theory difficult, it is also fascinating. Incrementally, there have been gains in my understanding by reading books largely by Marcus Chown, Carlo Rovelli and John Gribbin.
Sean Carroll tackles the subject in a very classical way. He starts with a brief synopsis of the significance of the discovery of the Higgs Boson which fills in a crucial gap in the Standard Model. He then takes a step back, providing a very detailed overview of all fundamental particles, the challenges and recent progress. The later sections cover the Higgs Boson and Higgs Field (conceptually even more important than the boson), supersymmetry, dark matter & energy.
The coverage is very comprehensive and links multiple concepts well together. Much of it was however very linear with the material being exactly what you would expect in all standard physics textbooks. The audiobook narration was good. However, I tend to rate books on the subject higher based on the storytelling aspect rather than completeness of coverage.
My rating: 3.25 / 5.
Sean Carroll tackles the subject in a very classical way. He starts with a brief synopsis of the significance of the discovery of the Higgs Boson which fills in a crucial gap in the Standard Model. He then takes a step back, providing a very detailed overview of all fundamental particles, the challenges and recent progress. The later sections cover the Higgs Boson and Higgs Field (conceptually even more important than the boson), supersymmetry, dark matter & energy.
The coverage is very comprehensive and links multiple concepts well together. Much of it was however very linear with the material being exactly what you would expect in all standard physics textbooks. The audiobook narration was good. However, I tend to rate books on the subject higher based on the storytelling aspect rather than completeness of coverage.
My rating: 3.25 / 5.
December 24, 2025
The more I understand, the more I understand how much I don't understand.
And I'm fine with that.
Sean Carroll does an admirable job trying to give laymen like me a condensed view of the world of not just particles we know about, but also the particles we think we know about, and how they interact in the wider universe. Theoretical physics is one of those fields where the questions are as interesting as the answers.
And even with all the leaps we've made in particle physics, there are still bjillions of things that we don't have the answers to when it comes to how our universe works.
We don't even know the right questions to ask yet. Personally, I think there will always be unanswered questions that people much smarter than I will spend their lives working to answer. I'm just grateful for the curiosity that keeps pushing our society further and further into enlightenment. I think if that were ever to die, we would become irrelevant as a species.
I guess that's my way of saying that I think curiosity and opposable thumbs are what have pushed us to the top of the food chain. And if we stop putting the proper emphasis on fostering our children's love of continual learning throughout their lifetimes, we might just find ourselves in a whole mess of...mess.
Recommended for the curious.
And I'm fine with that.
Sean Carroll does an admirable job trying to give laymen like me a condensed view of the world of not just particles we know about, but also the particles we think we know about, and how they interact in the wider universe. Theoretical physics is one of those fields where the questions are as interesting as the answers.
And even with all the leaps we've made in particle physics, there are still bjillions of things that we don't have the answers to when it comes to how our universe works.
We don't even know the right questions to ask yet. Personally, I think there will always be unanswered questions that people much smarter than I will spend their lives working to answer. I'm just grateful for the curiosity that keeps pushing our society further and further into enlightenment. I think if that were ever to die, we would become irrelevant as a species.
I guess that's my way of saying that I think curiosity and opposable thumbs are what have pushed us to the top of the food chain. And if we stop putting the proper emphasis on fostering our children's love of continual learning throughout their lifetimes, we might just find ourselves in a whole mess of...mess.
Recommended for the curious.
November 20, 2021
In order to be somewhat informed about advances in science I try to listen to at least one series of lectures about particle physics or astrophysics each year. Since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Higgs boson have been in the news during the past year I figured I needed listen to this collection of twelve lectures to see if I could understand why it’s such a big deal.
One of the first things I learned from these lectures is not think of the Higgs as a particle. Instead it is a field that fills the universe including apparently empty space. The Higgs is what gives mass to other particles (actually particle fields).
Space isn’t what is used to be. I thought space was empty. Now I learn that it’s filled with Higgs fields busy giving mass to any subatomic particles that happen to pass through. It’s beginning to sound a little like luminiferous aether that the physicists of the late 19th Century theorized about. Of course it’s different, but still ... . There's other stuff filling space too, such as graviton fields, dark matter and dark energy, but that's material for another set of lectures.
At this point the lectures began to review the subatomic particles that comprise the particle zoo of modern physics (multiple varieties of photons, gluons and quarks of various colors, spins, and charms). It made me long for the good old days when general theory of relativity was the new concept.
The array of subatomic particles is bad enough, but it became even more confusing when the lecturer began to go through all the different particles that might be formed when two protons collide at high energy levels. Making protons collide is what they were doing at the LHC in their efforts to find the Higgs boson.
The Higgs can’t be seen directly, but the standard model can predict the relative probabilities of the various types of reactions that will occur when protons collide. So when the various reactions did end up occurring in the proportions that had been predicted, that served as confirmation.
The Higgs Boson is a big deal because it is the last component of the Standard Model of particle physics to be confirmed by experimental tests. So now all material of our earth, all the objects we can see in the universe, and all the stuff we are made of have been accounted in a predictable model. Unfortunately, the Standard Model accounts for only 5 percent of the mass and energy in the universe. The missing stuff not accounted for by the Standard Model is made up of dark matter and dark energy. (68% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. Everything else 5%) Likewise, gravity has never been satisfactorily accounted for in the Standard Model.
So there're plenty of questions yet to be answered. The Higgs boson can be a stepping-stone to our exploration of dark matter, extra dimensions, supersymmetry, and the asymmetry of matter and antimatter, and a grand Unified Theory of particle physics.
The following is a graphical representation of the Standard Model:
One of the first things I learned from these lectures is not think of the Higgs as a particle. Instead it is a field that fills the universe including apparently empty space. The Higgs is what gives mass to other particles (actually particle fields).
Space isn’t what is used to be. I thought space was empty. Now I learn that it’s filled with Higgs fields busy giving mass to any subatomic particles that happen to pass through. It’s beginning to sound a little like luminiferous aether that the physicists of the late 19th Century theorized about. Of course it’s different, but still ... . There's other stuff filling space too, such as graviton fields, dark matter and dark energy, but that's material for another set of lectures.
At this point the lectures began to review the subatomic particles that comprise the particle zoo of modern physics (multiple varieties of photons, gluons and quarks of various colors, spins, and charms). It made me long for the good old days when general theory of relativity was the new concept.
The array of subatomic particles is bad enough, but it became even more confusing when the lecturer began to go through all the different particles that might be formed when two protons collide at high energy levels. Making protons collide is what they were doing at the LHC in their efforts to find the Higgs boson.
The Higgs can’t be seen directly, but the standard model can predict the relative probabilities of the various types of reactions that will occur when protons collide. So when the various reactions did end up occurring in the proportions that had been predicted, that served as confirmation.
The Higgs Boson is a big deal because it is the last component of the Standard Model of particle physics to be confirmed by experimental tests. So now all material of our earth, all the objects we can see in the universe, and all the stuff we are made of have been accounted in a predictable model. Unfortunately, the Standard Model accounts for only 5 percent of the mass and energy in the universe. The missing stuff not accounted for by the Standard Model is made up of dark matter and dark energy. (68% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. Everything else 5%) Likewise, gravity has never been satisfactorily accounted for in the Standard Model.
So there're plenty of questions yet to be answered. The Higgs boson can be a stepping-stone to our exploration of dark matter, extra dimensions, supersymmetry, and the asymmetry of matter and antimatter, and a grand Unified Theory of particle physics.
The following is a graphical representation of the Standard Model:
June 15, 2017
I will not claim that I understood all of the content in these lectures. However, even though I struggled to understand the physics, Carroll did do a good job of laying out the concepts in "layman's" terms as much as possible. I found him to be an excellent instructor. This is a series of twelve 1/2 hour lectures that build upon each other to explain the importance of the Higgs Boson particle and field. The Higgs Boson is the final piece of the puzzle that completes the Standard Model in physics. The Higgs Boson has been predicted for a long time, but has been illusive due to the difficulty in building an experiment that can create it. The particle was finally detected in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland/France. In the lectures, Carroll gives background on the known particles and forces that comprise the Standard Model. He then discusses what the Higgs is, why it is significant to the nature of our universe, and how it was found at the LHC. I would recommend this course to those interested in getting a taste of particle physics.
April 18, 2015
Sean Carroll does a great job introducing the reader to field theory. He gets major props for explaining how the fields are more fundamental than the particles in the Standard Model. He describes the Higgs mechanism and the search for this particle at the LHC. He also talks a little bit about theories beyond the Standard Model. I can't say enough how happy I am that Carroll goes into depth and pulls no punches teaching the actual physics. So many popular science authors just skim the surface. This lecture stands out for its excellence.
June 17, 2021
In brief how I understood what Higgs boson is. My definition follows: "Assume I switch of the Higgs field with placing the Higgs switch on OFF, the entire material reality would start falling apart on atoms, and will start to transform into pure energy while accelerating toward the speed of light."
Don't agree? Well, correct me of you have better.
The author Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993. His research focuses on issues in cosmology, field theory, and gravitation. His book The Particle at the End of the Universe won the prestigious Winton Prize for Science Books in 2013. Carroll lives in Los Angeles with his wife, writer Jennifer Ouellette.
This is not the first time I'm taking lecture from professor Carroll. I could choose from many others, but since I've started my particle physics journey with him in the not so distant past, and I liked his tremendous knowledge and his enthusiasm, the way he transmits both of it, here I joined him again but now on subject of Higgs boson.
I must admit, despite I've done the lecture putting 110% into mastering all in details, it was impossible for me to grasp higher level knowledge during particle decay and transformation. I simply lacked deeper knowledge to get alone with particle characteristics.
So, full value preview shouldn't be expected from me. However, I did manage to refresh my knowledge database from particle zoo, I've learned recently a lot of new facts from nuclear physics and finally in terms of some lower level I understood what Higgs boson is.
Nice lecture, I liked it a lot.
Don't agree? Well, correct me of you have better.
The author Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1993. His research focuses on issues in cosmology, field theory, and gravitation. His book The Particle at the End of the Universe won the prestigious Winton Prize for Science Books in 2013. Carroll lives in Los Angeles with his wife, writer Jennifer Ouellette.
This is not the first time I'm taking lecture from professor Carroll. I could choose from many others, but since I've started my particle physics journey with him in the not so distant past, and I liked his tremendous knowledge and his enthusiasm, the way he transmits both of it, here I joined him again but now on subject of Higgs boson.
I must admit, despite I've done the lecture putting 110% into mastering all in details, it was impossible for me to grasp higher level knowledge during particle decay and transformation. I simply lacked deeper knowledge to get alone with particle characteristics.
So, full value preview shouldn't be expected from me. However, I did manage to refresh my knowledge database from particle zoo, I've learned recently a lot of new facts from nuclear physics and finally in terms of some lower level I understood what Higgs boson is.
Nice lecture, I liked it a lot.
October 2, 2020
Sean Carroll is exceptional in his articulation of most fundamental concepts in nature : the nature of fundamental forces. He introduces the audience with very subtle overview of Quantum Field Theory then goes on to explain how every single thing in the universe is connected via that. I find his explanation of Gauge symmetry and gauge Boson fascinating. Finally he sums up how all of these Complex pattern ties with Higgs boson and it's nature. Although it's for layman , I think basic knowledge of Fundamental Theoritical Physics will help readers to understand the concept more eloquently.
July 8, 2024
For the (near) current state of theoretical physics this is probably the most enlightening I’ve listened to. It did sometimes become a little overwhelming, as when navigating the aptly named “particle zoo” but I simply had to accept that I wasn’t going to remember all of the info and carry on. The sheer amount of reliable info about the current state and history of particle- and theoretical physics is hard to beat.
March 29, 2025
I learnt a huge amount from this, my only gripe was that Prof. Sean Carroll spoke too fast! I love that he's enthusiastic about his subject but I had to keep rewinding, which got tiring. I'm actually going to listen to the whole thing again right away because I think having read the more complex later chapters and having the key facts reiterated a lot, I should be able to pick up on things that were a bit confusing on the first read. Highly, highly recommend - but be warned, this is seriously heavy stuff - I did A level physics and have a master's in maths and I only really grasped maybe 1/3 of the material on the first read. Really fascinating though - I'm seriously considering aiming some of my future PhD research in a more theoretical-physicsy direction because this stuff is SOOO interesting. Thank you Sean Carroll!
March 5, 2016
This series took me more than a month to get through, but not because it wasn't interesting. I had to limit my time listening so that I could take notes and think about each lecture for a long time before moving onto the next one. This series is even more relatable than Carroll's book, Particle at the Edge of the Universe-- if that is even possible.
I highly recommend this series to anyone curious about how matter came to exist, and thus how our universe came to exist. It would be hard to put into words how exciting it is for me to know that we have the LHC, graviton detectors, and big beautiful telescopes-- all working in tandem to tell us more about our universe than we ever knew before.
I highly recommend this series to anyone curious about how matter came to exist, and thus how our universe came to exist. It would be hard to put into words how exciting it is for me to know that we have the LHC, graviton detectors, and big beautiful telescopes-- all working in tandem to tell us more about our universe than we ever knew before.
March 29, 2015
Well done lectures on a fascinating topic but I'm still ignorant about the Higgs boson and the standard model of particle physics. The lecturer and I made earnest attempts on both topics but we failed to make me any smarter. So... I get one star for comprehension and the lectures get three for effort.
March 15, 2022
"It was amazing." - 5 out of 5 stars.
I was leaning towards a 4 on this one, but to be fair content creator Sean Carroll makes a subject that could be either overly complex and delivered in an extremely boring format... made it super easy to understand and a lot fun. That alone right there deservers a +1, passing it across the 5/5 finish line.
If you've seen the movie Particle Fever, you'll enjoy this all that much more.
If you haven't seen Particle Fever, I highly recommend giving it a shot. While this course is truly great, I do feel like having some background knowledge such as this movie will make all that much more enjoyable.
Greatest highlight within this course:
For as lightweight as this is too, with being as short as a Great Course will ever be, I absolutely recommend.
I was leaning towards a 4 on this one, but to be fair content creator Sean Carroll makes a subject that could be either overly complex and delivered in an extremely boring format... made it super easy to understand and a lot fun. That alone right there deservers a +1, passing it across the 5/5 finish line.
If you've seen the movie Particle Fever, you'll enjoy this all that much more.
If you haven't seen Particle Fever, I highly recommend giving it a shot. While this course is truly great, I do feel like having some background knowledge such as this movie will make all that much more enjoyable.
Greatest highlight within this course:
For as lightweight as this is too, with being as short as a Great Course will ever be, I absolutely recommend.
October 4, 2020
I didn’t ever study Physics in school and don’t have much higher mathematical training but this course by a CalTech theoretical Physics professor was fascinating and relatively straightforward. I’d mangle my book report on this one but I’ve learned a few key bullet points that will stick with me.
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October 17, 2024Þá er maður bara orðinn kjarneðlisfræðingur
October 2, 2017
Fascinating. Listen twice. In the presentation of quantum field theory, no particles exist, only fields. It was news to me. I will be listening and studying, again.
January 21, 2023
I know nothing about physics - this was my first exposure to it. It's very interesting if more than a bit beyond me. I think if I was actually trying to learn it I'd have to listen to each section more than once and do some additional studying. Because of that, each additional section got harder and harder for me to follow since the professor was building on the ideas from the previous sections. So for me, the first 2 or 3 sections were fascinating and the last few? Well, I understood the words, lol but got lost in trying to connect all the concepts.
March 22, 2016
First postulated to exist in 1964 by Peter Higgs, the discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2012 was the last piece of the Standard Model of Particle Physics to be confirmed experimentally. It’s verification from theory to reality is momentous in the field of modern physics, not to mention the 10 billion dollars spent on it, so wouldn’t you like to know why it was worth it?
As a chemist, I picture the standard textbook model of electrons circling an atom’s nucleus, but Carroll weaves a fantastic story about the basics of quantum mechanics with a startling revelation — particles are created only when we observe the fields that permeate the universe. With my active listening skills on to their full potential, I highly enjoy the particle zoo (the review of photons, gluons, quarks with characteristics of color, spin, and charm), but I start to lose traction when theory collides photons together using Feyman diagrams to simulate how forces are carried between leptons and quarks. The audio-book only may not have been the best option for a visual learner.
With the four forces of the Standard Model and the symmetries of laws themselves covered, the lectures transition to an in-depth look at the largest machine ever built, the Large Hadron Collider. It doesn’t just smash atoms together to find out what’s inside — new particles are actually brought into existence during experiments that generate 25 petabytes (1,000,000 gigabytes) of data per year! Sifting through all that data are a huge number of scientists from all over the world working cooperatively to push the boundary of our understanding of the universe that much further. I find myself optimistic for the human race.
The Lectures:
1. The Importance of the Higgs Boson
2. Quantum Field Theory
3. Atoms to Particles
4. The Power of Symmetry
5. The Higgs Field
6. Mass and Energy
7. Colliding Particles
8. Particle Accelerators and Detectors
9. The Large Hadron Collider
10. Capturing the Higgs Boson
11. Beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics
12. Frontiers: Higgs in Space
With the Standard Model complete, are we done? Unfortunately all the particles/fields that the Standard Model accounts for is only 5% of the stuff that makes up the universe. We still have a lot to learn about dark matter and dark energy. We have a long way to go!
Recommended for readers with at least a beginner-level background in science who want a crash course in the Higgs (-Englert-Brout-Guralnik-Hagen-Kibble-and everyone who worked on the Large Hadron Collider) Boson!
As a chemist, I picture the standard textbook model of electrons circling an atom’s nucleus, but Carroll weaves a fantastic story about the basics of quantum mechanics with a startling revelation — particles are created only when we observe the fields that permeate the universe. With my active listening skills on to their full potential, I highly enjoy the particle zoo (the review of photons, gluons, quarks with characteristics of color, spin, and charm), but I start to lose traction when theory collides photons together using Feyman diagrams to simulate how forces are carried between leptons and quarks. The audio-book only may not have been the best option for a visual learner.
With the four forces of the Standard Model and the symmetries of laws themselves covered, the lectures transition to an in-depth look at the largest machine ever built, the Large Hadron Collider. It doesn’t just smash atoms together to find out what’s inside — new particles are actually brought into existence during experiments that generate 25 petabytes (1,000,000 gigabytes) of data per year! Sifting through all that data are a huge number of scientists from all over the world working cooperatively to push the boundary of our understanding of the universe that much further. I find myself optimistic for the human race.
The Lectures:
1. The Importance of the Higgs Boson
2. Quantum Field Theory
3. Atoms to Particles
4. The Power of Symmetry
5. The Higgs Field
6. Mass and Energy
7. Colliding Particles
8. Particle Accelerators and Detectors
9. The Large Hadron Collider
10. Capturing the Higgs Boson
11. Beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics
12. Frontiers: Higgs in Space
With the Standard Model complete, are we done? Unfortunately all the particles/fields that the Standard Model accounts for is only 5% of the stuff that makes up the universe. We still have a lot to learn about dark matter and dark energy. We have a long way to go!
Recommended for readers with at least a beginner-level background in science who want a crash course in the Higgs (-Englert-Brout-Guralnik-Hagen-Kibble-and everyone who worked on the Large Hadron Collider) Boson!
May 20, 2016
While I am not a physicist, I do maintain a healthy interest in the latest goings on in the scientific world. I certainly know enough physics to know The Higgs Boson is one of those terms I see quite a lot and I felt I should perhaps learn a bit more about it.
I have to say listening to this while driving down the road with my mind on the traffic or walking down the street with my dog is perhaps not the best way to absorb the contents of this lecture. I think I would have been much better off listening to this while sitting in front of my computer with my finger on the pause button and Wikipedia in easy access to help supplement everything I was listening to. I am not sure I am now in much better shape in understanding the Higgs Boson as I was before listening to this lecture.
I did recognize a number of items the professor spoke of. For example, I remember the Superconducting Super Collider being canceled by the U.S. government and how upset scientists were at the time it happened although I did not understand what it was to be used for other than colliding particles. I also remember seeing graphs online with a slight bulge in them being evidence that it might be the Higgs Boson causing that bulge, but CERN was not ready yet to claim it.
I am glad though that when CERN did turn on the Large Hadron Collider that the world did not go into a Flash Forward. If you do not understand that reference, read the book Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer, or don't since it was a rather mediocre book and I can think of a number of books I would recommend before reading it if reading for pleasure.
Anyway, I am not sure if I recommend this lecture or not. Maybe one day I will sit in front of my computer while listening to the lecture and looking up the concepts the professor mentions. Once I do that, then maybe I might be in a better position to recommend it.
I have to say listening to this while driving down the road with my mind on the traffic or walking down the street with my dog is perhaps not the best way to absorb the contents of this lecture. I think I would have been much better off listening to this while sitting in front of my computer with my finger on the pause button and Wikipedia in easy access to help supplement everything I was listening to. I am not sure I am now in much better shape in understanding the Higgs Boson as I was before listening to this lecture.
I did recognize a number of items the professor spoke of. For example, I remember the Superconducting Super Collider being canceled by the U.S. government and how upset scientists were at the time it happened although I did not understand what it was to be used for other than colliding particles. I also remember seeing graphs online with a slight bulge in them being evidence that it might be the Higgs Boson causing that bulge, but CERN was not ready yet to claim it.
I am glad though that when CERN did turn on the Large Hadron Collider that the world did not go into a Flash Forward. If you do not understand that reference, read the book Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer, or don't since it was a rather mediocre book and I can think of a number of books I would recommend before reading it if reading for pleasure.
Anyway, I am not sure if I recommend this lecture or not. Maybe one day I will sit in front of my computer while listening to the lecture and looking up the concepts the professor mentions. Once I do that, then maybe I might be in a better position to recommend it.
May 21, 2016
One thing about The Great Courses series that I really like is that the courses are made approachable and accessible, so non-experts can get a lot out of them. And yet, they don’t “dumb it down;” these are real authorities in their fields teaching real subjects. They are a perfect way to build comprehensive knowledge, a tool towards turning yourself into a renaissance man or woman. For instance, I have not taken a science course since Intro to Biology in college. But I am still very much interested in science, and though the tedium of calculations can bore me, the ideas always fascinate me. In particular, the abstract stuff like particle physics. So I read this course on the Higgs-Boson particle. It was clear, informative, and well organized. I still feel as if I understood only a tiny fraction of it, and I know this course only touched on the basics in the field. The ideas are so abstract and there are so many terms to remember that I would have to take this course two or three times before I felt I had a real grasp on it. If you asked me now the difference between a boson and a lepton and a gluon, I would be utterly at a loss. This is not a fault of the course. Carroll does an excellent job keeping everything organized and clear. He is in a difficult position, too, having to race through a lot of the basics of particle physics to get to explaining what the HB is and why it matters, and he organized the course well for this. The most concrete and engaging part of the course was the lecture on the building of the Large Hadron Collider; the challenges and setbacks in that project are fascinating enough on their own. Overall analysis: a well- designed and informative Great Course, but one that probably requires multiple reads to fully understand, unless you already have a background in physics.
May 29, 2017
Audio book from Great Courses series, really very good. Several years ago before the Higgs discovery had occurred I read another book about the Large Hadron Collider which was written for a general audience, albeit one interested in science.
This book is for an audience that has taken courses in modern physics at the university level. This is serious physics.
I got the book because of the "Beyond" part in the title and the book does not disappoint here. Discussion on how the Higgs and the LHC can contribute to our discovering what dark energy and dark matter are is fascinating.
The Professor does his own narration and does it very well, at times quite amusing, always engaging.
Listened to these lectures again (2/17) trying to get my mind around the consensus by physicists today that we only know about 5% of what makes up the universe. The rest of the 95% is dark energy and dark matter. At this point there is very little hope that we are going to be successful in even detecting all this missing stuff.
I have just read this work so soon again (May 2017) because it is very complicated stuff and I really want to understand it.
This book is for an audience that has taken courses in modern physics at the university level. This is serious physics.
I got the book because of the "Beyond" part in the title and the book does not disappoint here. Discussion on how the Higgs and the LHC can contribute to our discovering what dark energy and dark matter are is fascinating.
The Professor does his own narration and does it very well, at times quite amusing, always engaging.
Listened to these lectures again (2/17) trying to get my mind around the consensus by physicists today that we only know about 5% of what makes up the universe. The rest of the 95% is dark energy and dark matter. At this point there is very little hope that we are going to be successful in even detecting all this missing stuff.
I have just read this work so soon again (May 2017) because it is very complicated stuff and I really want to understand it.
January 23, 2019
I enjoyed this greatly, yet I know many won't because it does get somewhat technical for the average person (me included) in particle physics. (Although, after this course, it feels like a misnomer to say "particle.") The concept that what I had considered particles are actually vibrations/movement in a field is mind blowing. The role of the Higgs field is even moreso. This surface look at many phenomena (including dark energy and dark matter) was greatly interesting, even though I've not sat down with the math for values created by up-quarks, down-quarks, etc., so others will get even more out of this if you dig in more. Even at this more surface look, these can be very hard to understand (at least for me). WHO WILL NOT ENJOY IT? ...those who are not interested in things that are elusive and leave many open-ended questions, and those who doubt science, and must have exacting proof for everything. But many of the rest of us will be amazed and gratified for what we know, and other things yet to be discovered. Thanks much Sean!
September 22, 2016
It is difficult to rate this lecture series. I am giving it three stars due to there being nothing bad about it. However, they do not make it at all clear that this series is in no way meant for people outside the area of study. As an intelligent person without physics background past high school, almost all of it was impossible for me to really grasp in any meaningful way.
May 24, 2016
This was way too detailed for me to come away from it remembering anything but a few interesting tidbits about the political and economic aspects of building the LHC. Carroll was easy to listen to, but I wouldn't recommend this unless you have a background in science.
May 21, 2016
Commendable job by Prof Caroll - the book did clear some concepts around particle/wave relationship , standard particle model and Large Hadron Collider . However he lost me once we entered into discussions around super symmetry , Z-bosons and some explanations around it can get quite complicated .
April 25, 2019
Too specific a topic. You have to be into physics alot, to find this book interesting. But if you are into physics and want to know more about Higgs Boson, I guess this is a great book.
December 9, 2020
This “book” (technically Great Course course, with associated approx. 100 page workbook) is exactly what I wanted to read when I had the inkling to attain a conceptual understanding of quantum field theory (QFT). Having had only partial success with both Butterworth’s “Atom Land” and Wilczek’s “A Beautiful Question”, but still appreciate both of these books, I wasn’t expecting much out of this text, but was pleasantly surprised.
Given my very basic understanding of the subject-matter, the “facts” derived from QFT with respect to the particle zoo, might benefit more from a straight-forward accounting treatment for a introductory layman text, and less from a grand-historical narrative connecting the development of QFT to Aristotle and Euclid, or making a clever analogy on the connections between these particles to each other, with “islands” and all the ways one may get from one island to another, and Carroll delivers exactly this.
To be sure, QFT is not really the main subject for the course, it’s understanding the Higgs Boson, the Higgs Field, and it’s associated mechanisms. Yet, one can’t do that without having some rudimentary understanding of QFT, and Carroll manages to equip the reader with a a decent understanding of this within the first 3 chapters of the course. Fermisons, Bosos, Quarks, and Leptons are compactly tabulated in two tables. One showing the different combinations of each (e.g. Up is a quark and fermion, whereas the electron is a fermion and lepton etc.) and he constructs a nice flow-chart/di-graph showing which properties characterize whether a particle is one or the other (with each characteristic being a decision-question in the flow-chart).
I was pleased with these illustrations, and in the case of the flow-chart graph, this accomplished most of what “Atom Land’s” island analogy did throughout the entirety of that book in half a page, and 1 lecture-lesson of Carroll. To be sure, there was much more “color” in Atom Land, but to be honest, I found much of that description to wash over me, as I don’t have any of the mathematical knowledge to back up and really make any of this material ‘real’ in a functional sense. So I will take shallow accounting-tables over deep-analogizing for now. That being said, having now gone through Carroll’s short course, I may go ahead and quickly re-read Wilzcek’s book as I expect to benefit from those broader “philosophizing” found in that book now that I have the concrete facts more solidly pinned down.
Chapter 4 was another great chapter, where Carroll discusses the notion of symmetry. Again, I don’t believe I have anything more than a cursory understanding of how this fits into the mechanics of it all, but Caroll makes clear that the issue that forced the construction of a formal field theory to help explain the parity-breaking for the weak nuclear force. In essence, the other forces are invariant up-to the reflection isometry (and maybe the entire group of isometries?), but the weak nuclear is not, and explaining why this was eventually leads to the notion of the “Higgs Field” and the notions of the space-filling fields in general.
Can’t claim to understand this in any functional level, but it will suffice to noodle in my head until I read something more tangible (a textbook or a more technical book). The rest of the text is Carroll discussing the history of the Higgs and explaining the mechanism of the Higgs further, as well as going over the LHC and the nature of experimentation with respect to the Higgs Discovery in the LHC. I enjoyed this section as well, and everything was immediately understandable.
I wish I had read this book prior to attempting either “Atom Land” or Wilczek text. I think it would be wise for someone coming in with no background at all (mathematics or physics) to prioritize this text. Carroll’s a great expositor, very easy to listen to, and he has structured his story very well. Highly recommended.
Given my very basic understanding of the subject-matter, the “facts” derived from QFT with respect to the particle zoo, might benefit more from a straight-forward accounting treatment for a introductory layman text, and less from a grand-historical narrative connecting the development of QFT to Aristotle and Euclid, or making a clever analogy on the connections between these particles to each other, with “islands” and all the ways one may get from one island to another, and Carroll delivers exactly this.
To be sure, QFT is not really the main subject for the course, it’s understanding the Higgs Boson, the Higgs Field, and it’s associated mechanisms. Yet, one can’t do that without having some rudimentary understanding of QFT, and Carroll manages to equip the reader with a a decent understanding of this within the first 3 chapters of the course. Fermisons, Bosos, Quarks, and Leptons are compactly tabulated in two tables. One showing the different combinations of each (e.g. Up is a quark and fermion, whereas the electron is a fermion and lepton etc.) and he constructs a nice flow-chart/di-graph showing which properties characterize whether a particle is one or the other (with each characteristic being a decision-question in the flow-chart).
I was pleased with these illustrations, and in the case of the flow-chart graph, this accomplished most of what “Atom Land’s” island analogy did throughout the entirety of that book in half a page, and 1 lecture-lesson of Carroll. To be sure, there was much more “color” in Atom Land, but to be honest, I found much of that description to wash over me, as I don’t have any of the mathematical knowledge to back up and really make any of this material ‘real’ in a functional sense. So I will take shallow accounting-tables over deep-analogizing for now. That being said, having now gone through Carroll’s short course, I may go ahead and quickly re-read Wilzcek’s book as I expect to benefit from those broader “philosophizing” found in that book now that I have the concrete facts more solidly pinned down.
Chapter 4 was another great chapter, where Carroll discusses the notion of symmetry. Again, I don’t believe I have anything more than a cursory understanding of how this fits into the mechanics of it all, but Caroll makes clear that the issue that forced the construction of a formal field theory to help explain the parity-breaking for the weak nuclear force. In essence, the other forces are invariant up-to the reflection isometry (and maybe the entire group of isometries?), but the weak nuclear is not, and explaining why this was eventually leads to the notion of the “Higgs Field” and the notions of the space-filling fields in general.
Can’t claim to understand this in any functional level, but it will suffice to noodle in my head until I read something more tangible (a textbook or a more technical book). The rest of the text is Carroll discussing the history of the Higgs and explaining the mechanism of the Higgs further, as well as going over the LHC and the nature of experimentation with respect to the Higgs Discovery in the LHC. I enjoyed this section as well, and everything was immediately understandable.
I wish I had read this book prior to attempting either “Atom Land” or Wilczek text. I think it would be wise for someone coming in with no background at all (mathematics or physics) to prioritize this text. Carroll’s a great expositor, very easy to listen to, and he has structured his story very well. Highly recommended.
November 4, 2019
Note: This review is for the audio book and associated Course Guidebook
The format is your standard for a Great Courses course. With multiple lectures of less than one hour and an accompanying Course Guidebook.
Audio Lectures
The audio lectures are excellent. The lecturer (Professor Sean Carroll) is easy to listen to and articulate. The lectures are well structured and, for the complexity of the topic, present material in a way that is easy to understand. However, I was finding myself having to re-listen to lectures but I think this was more due to the complexity of the topic then the lecturer’s ability.
Course Guidebook
The Course Guidebook is well structured, having dot point notes of the lecture, followed by a limited set of Suggested Reading, and some ‘questions to consider’. Unfortunately, it is black and white (style counts), and does not add any further value on top of the audio lectures. It contains eight diagrams all up (and some of these are pictures of scientists) and don’t really add to your understanding of the material. In summary, it really is not needed (apart from quick refresh or to find a topic) and is disappointing.
In Summary
This is not an easy topic and I found the Prof. Carroll’s enthusiasm and his structured lectures made the subject easier to understand. I learnt many things from this course that I did not already know (Such as the answer to the question “Is matter a particle or a wave?”) and would recommend the course.
The format is your standard for a Great Courses course. With multiple lectures of less than one hour and an accompanying Course Guidebook.
Audio Lectures
The audio lectures are excellent. The lecturer (Professor Sean Carroll) is easy to listen to and articulate. The lectures are well structured and, for the complexity of the topic, present material in a way that is easy to understand. However, I was finding myself having to re-listen to lectures but I think this was more due to the complexity of the topic then the lecturer’s ability.
Course Guidebook
The Course Guidebook is well structured, having dot point notes of the lecture, followed by a limited set of Suggested Reading, and some ‘questions to consider’. Unfortunately, it is black and white (style counts), and does not add any further value on top of the audio lectures. It contains eight diagrams all up (and some of these are pictures of scientists) and don’t really add to your understanding of the material. In summary, it really is not needed (apart from quick refresh or to find a topic) and is disappointing.
In Summary
This is not an easy topic and I found the Prof. Carroll’s enthusiasm and his structured lectures made the subject easier to understand. I learnt many things from this course that I did not already know (Such as the answer to the question “Is matter a particle or a wave?”) and would recommend the course.
August 4, 2017
Very interesting lecture! Besides the special focus on the Higgs boson, it turned out to be a gentle introduction to particle physics (as far as the definition of gentleness goes). The lecture also tackles things like particles that aren't particles, particles with negative mass, zombie cats, and other mundane topics. Unexpectedly, this lecture is great if you want to know more about quantum physics and show off the feat to your friends, but don't feel like delving into these strange waters — and if a smartass press you to tell more, apologize and say that even the experts don't entirely understand how quantum physics works (after all, whoever says the opposite is either lying or a new-age practitioner).
July 16, 2024
Ironically for a summary of particle physics from the standpoint of quantum field theory, this book is too certain. Electrons ARE waves. Interactions with the Higgs field IS mass. There's none of the nuance of "according to this model," or "experiments have shown." There's too much space and too little substance devoted to the funding and construction of particle accelerators, and we're left without knowing much about Higgs boson itself. Carrol does okay with his central metaphor about a celebrity try to move through a crowded room, but he doesn't take it any farther. Why is being slowed down by the Higgs field a good explanation for inertial mass? What does that have to do with gravitational mass? PBS Eons goes deeper.
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