The book provides a brief history ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ particle physics, starting with the Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Democritus, and continuing through Isaac Newton, Roger J. Boscovich, Michael Faraday, and Ernest Rutherford. This leads in to a discussion ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the development ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ quantum physics in the 20th century. In a nod to the philosophy ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ atomism, Lederman follows the convention ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ using the word "atom" to refer to atoms in their modern sense as the smallest unit ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ any chemical element, and "a-tom" to refer to the actual basic indivisible particles ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ matter, the quarks and leptons.
The book is written in a lighthearted tone, with numerous jokes and humorous anecdotes. The particle identified in the title is the Higgs boson proposed by the physicist Peter Higgs [1], and Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and Tom Kibble [2], and François Englert and Robert Brout [3]. Higgs actually joked that Lederman originally wished to label this particle as "the goddamn particle".[4]
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