So I decided to write a short e-book, but only if I could do it in a week. But I also wanted to return to full-time research and not be burdened with another book so soon after finishing the previous one. Having just written a book, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” which among other things explained the LHC and the search for the Higgs boson, I wanted to be able to answer those questions and complete the story (at least this part of it). Even though they were fascinated, they didn’t quite know what it was that had been found.
And many people immediately wrote to me to express excitement but also to ask many questions. I was thrilled, but also frustrated to be so far from my work and my colleagues at the time. I listened to a live feed (supplemented with Twitter for when the signal was too low). I literally heard about the discovery on the balcony of the one café with Internet nearby on the island. When the discovery was announced on July 4, 2012, I was on vacation on the island of Patmos, Greece, where I was attending a wedding. Yet no one knew for certain when - and even if - it would be found.
One of the goals was to find the Higgs boson, a particle that helps us understand how elementary particles acquire their masses. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the 27-kilometer-circumference machine near Geneva, was built to look for new particles and forces and the underlying nature of matter. The particle was predicted based on the need for a consistent theory to describe what was known about nature half a century ago. RANDALL: The discovery of the Higgs boson was a remarkable event. GAZETTE: Why did you write this book, and for whom is it written?
Here, Randall discusses her motivation for writing the book and why the Higgs unearthing is so significant. Her e-book, “Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space,” which delves into the discovery of the Higgs boson, has been so successful that it was recently released in paperback. Professor of Science in Harvard’s Department of Physics, is an expert on particle physics and in 2007 was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people.
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