#279 - the search continues

i just finished reading the search for superstrings, symmetry, and the theory of everything by john gribbin... it took me four years to read this book, but only because i only started reading it this summer. not for lack of interest, though, because i've always been kind of intrigued by theoretical physics (not experimental physics... because high school physics and physics labs in college taught me that NO experiment ever comes out right, and yet they expect us to believe that it might if the world were "perfect," pssh). but the reading bug comes and goes for me, i need to be in the right mood, and when i am, dude i jam through those books. but this book i bought at the mckinley book fair maybe four years ago for $4 and it was a great thing that i waited so long to read it because this year or next they will finally turn on the large hadron collider in geneva, switzerland and actually begin testing a lot of the theories presented in this book.

see, the problem with science is that it takes so darn long. people have been tackling the "theory of everything" since einstein couldn't figure it out and even string theory has actually been around since the 1960's. as technology advanced and physicists could actually contruct experiments to test out and find evidence for some of their theories momentum grew and now supersymmetry and membrane-theory (kind of an updated version of string theory) are the leading contenders for the "theory of everything" with a chance to actually be proven correct once they turn on that huge (and by huge, i mean, humungolous! big enough to straddle country borders) large hadron collider and start creating matter. yes, that's right, creating matter. it's a weird concept. creating matter from energy? how can matter just pop up? it's hard to imagine, but that's exactly what happens. matter and energy are just different forms of the same thing (so says einstein... remember e=mc squared? [i can't put the superscript in there]). so once they turn that bugger on and smash those heavy hadrons together at gargantuan speeds (the energy source) they expect to create new matter (matter that quickly vanishes through other processes) as evidence to describe everything that the universe is made of and how they all interact with each other.

man, i learned a lot from this book... most of which is completely useless for everything except for understanding jokes on "the big bang theory." the problem now is that this book was published in 1998, and although it was a great way to catch me up on all the pre-requisite info from before einstein until now so that i can understand those science channel shows about CERN and the search for neutrinos and antineutrinos and stuff, a lot has happened in the past eleven years that i also need to catch up on. looks like i'm gonna have to find myself another book...