Nilesh Jasani's Reviews > Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass

Elusive comes in two parts: it is a book about a man, and it is also a book about his discovery. It works more as a book on Higgs boson than on Peter Higgs.

The book's primary objective is to look into the famous scientist's life. The author repeatedly highlights Higgs' shy and unassuming personality and how he goes to great lengths to deflect attention from himself. It is almost like the most interesting stories in the life of the celebrated scientist are all about how he makes himself uninteresting! Clearly, he does not make a good subject for a biography.

His discovery is a different matter. A part of the tale of his boson is about the particles' validation journey from around the mid-1990s until recently. A handful of books have come out on the LHC in the last few years. This book does not have much new to add to this part of the boson's rise to preeminence.

The author shines in his explanations of the discovery itself. Particle physics is a challenging topic for a popular science book, and the Higgs boson, with its intricate conceptualization, is worse. However, the author does an exceptional job of tackling the subject head-on, providing a detailed and comprehensive explanation of the relevant concepts without wasting space on more basic discussions on forces and fields commonly found in other popular books.

The author uses clear language and interesting analogies to make the topics more accessible. For example, when the author discusses why certain bosons are massless while others have mass, he explains utilizing the effect of plasma in the ionosphere. A plasma structure causes the reflection of waves below a certain frequency, causing an illusion of mass. Another good analogy is that of flat galaxy structures (and not spherical): this is an understandable example of how unstable symmetries break to create stable asymmetries. Once explained so clearly, it becomes easier for an average reader to understand the breaking of the electroweak force.

With additional arguments adopted from gauge theory (equations that remain invariant under certain transformations), the arguments move to non-zero vacuum expectation value and with associated Goldstone bosons that have mass.

Higgs' Boson story is incomplete. One knows extremely little about the underlying field and its mechanism. Those interested in the subject are assured of enhancing their understanding of what is achieved and what is pending.