Reddit mentions: The best particle physics books

I love science books. These are all on my bookshelf/around my apt. They aren't all chemistry, but they appeal to my science senses:

I got a coffee table book once as a gift. It's Theodore Gray's The Elements. It's beautiful, but like I said, more of a coffee table book. It's got a ton of very cool info about each atom though.

I tried The Immortal Life of Henrieta Lacks, which is all about the people and family behind HeLa cells. That was a big hit, but I didn't care for it.

I liked The Emperor of all Maladies which took a long time to read, but was super cool. It's essentially a biography of cancer. (Actually I think that's it's subtitle)

The Wizard of Quarks and Alice in Quantumland are both super cute allegories relating to partical physics and quantum physics respectively. I liked them both, though they felt low-level, tying them to high-level physics resulted in a fun read.

Unscientific America I bought on a whim and didn't really enjoy since it wasn't science enough.

The Ghost Map was a suuuper fun read about Cholera. I love reading about mass-epidemics and plague.

The Bell that Rings Light, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Schrödinger's Kittens, The Fabric of the Cosmos and Beyond the God Particle are all pleasure reading books that are really primers on Quantum.

I also tend to like anything by Mary Roach, which isn't necessarily chemistry or science, but is amusing and feels informative. I started with Stiff but she has a few others that I also enjoyed.

Have fun!

This is a fantastic question. I'm really glad you asked it.

First, we need to correct your formula for energy. It's not, as we are so often told, "E=mc^2 ". That equation only works for things that are stationary. Things that can move obey the following, "E = gamma * mc^2 ". This raises the obvious question, what is gamma?

The term "gamma" is shorthand for (1-(v/c)^2 )^(-1/2) , where v is the velocity of whatever is moving, and c is the speed of light. So "gamma" is a funny term that starts at a value of 1 for things that are stationary, but gets bigger and bigger for things moving faster and faster. The closer something moves to the speed of light, the closer gamma gets to infinity!

So, now that we know about gamma, what energy do we expect photons with zero mass to have?

Well, "E = gamma * mc^2 ". m = 0, just like you said. But gamma = infinity. (!) What a clever trick the universe plays! It says that mass-less objects must have zero energy, except if they move at the speed of light! So, photons are, in some sense, a loophole in relativity. Their existence and their energy and momentum can be seen as a technicality that's only permitted if they move at light-speed.

Note: I lifted this interpretation from David J. Griffiths' excellent text "Introduction to Elementary Particles."

No problem, let me know if you need any more resources.

Here are two particle physics books I liked that you could probably read with a high school background.

1. 
   The Particle Zoo: The Search for the Fundamental Nature of Reality by Gavin Hesketh
   https://www.amazon.com/Particle-Zoo-Search-Fundamental-Reality-ebook/dp/B01ARXVSS2
   
   I thought this book gave a good basic overview of particle physics:
   
   
2. Supersymmetry: Unveiling The Ultimate Laws Of Nature by Gordon Kane
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Supersymmetry-Unveiling-Ultimate-Laws-Nature/dp/0738204897
   
   I'm far too unqualified to actually comment on SUSY or the accuracy of this book, but I had fun reading it. Note that this is from Pre LHC era.
   
   Also if you're up for a challenge and have the necessary resources around you, there's a desktop muon detector project that you can ask your high school AP Physics C teacher to do with your class.
   
   http://www.cosmicwatch.lns.mit.edu/about
   
   I don't know what your electronics background is, but if you do find it interesting, be safe and don't get hurt building it.
   
   
   Edit: I second EulerJr's opinion about not getting involved in research as a freshman. I recommend enjoying learning Physics and college as much as you can your freshman year, and once you've got the handle on academics, your social life, and being a quasi-adult in general, start research in your sophomore year.

I would recommend Introduction to "Elementary Particle Physics" by David Griffiths

Its generally considered a higher-level undergrad book, but as a PhD student I still look at it from time to time, especially if I want to teach a specific subject. He will review the SR and Quantum for you, but at a level that you'd want to have seen it before. There's calc and a little bit of linear algebra, but at such a level that you could learn them for the first time through this text (assuming you've had SOME Calc before)

From there, the next level is sort of "Quarks and Leptons" by Halzen and Martin, which people are generally less excited about, but I enjoyed it.

After that, the top standard that even theorists seem to love is "High Energy Hadron Physics" by Martin Perl, where there are parts of that text that I still struggle with.

I don't know of any decent online particle physics resources. But there are two good books at the undergraduate level I can think of Griffiths and Halzen and Martin

For superconductivity you want to learn many body quantum mechanics, ie non-relativistic quantum field theory. The most common recommendation is Fetter and Walecka, but I might consider Thouless to be superior on account of it being 1/3rd the length and probably only covers core topics. If you feel like dropping a lot of money, Mahan is very good, but also somewhat exhaustive. Might be worth having as a reference depending on how serious you get. I would get F&W and Thouless simply on account of how cheap they are.

Here are some books I would suggest looking at:

Cahn and Goldhaber -- A very low math book that documents the discoveries many of the most important advancements in particle physics of the last fifty or so years.

Halzen and Martin -- One of the best introductions to particle physics out there. It's very readable and timeless. It does have some math though.

I would also suggest looking for information on the following things, but I don't have time to dig up suitable references for you:

The construction of Fermilab basically transformed the area west of Chicago from farmland to a technical corridor. There must be some historical sources on this change.

Partice physicists have produced a huge amount of innovation as a side effect of wanting to do effective research. The most common example is the internet. They also pioneered distributed computing (ie the Grid) which was the predecessor of the "Cloud." For the construction the LHC, junctions that allow current to be continuously passed from regular-conduction to super-conducting circuits were invented. And don't forget that one of the earliest particle accelerators, the cyclotron in Chicago, showed that it was possible to split the atom.

What are you trying to be? Have one book just slightly deeper than Greene's book, or actually learn theoretical physics to say become a theoretical physicist or at least understand it?

If the former, it will be difficult as there's a lot of things that might be tacitly assumed that you know about more basic physics. However, a very good intro to Quantum Mechanics is Shankar. I'd also look into Foster and Nightingale's relativity book for a brief introduction to special (read Appendix A first) and general relativity. Maybe after both try A. Zee intro to QFT if you want to learn more about QFT. If you want to learn about phenomenological particle physics, say look at Perkins. Also it may help to have a book on mathematical physics, such as Boas or Arfken. (Arfken is the more advanced book, but has less examples). Also it may help to get a basic modern physics book that has very little math, though I can't think of any good ones.

If the latter than you will have to learn a lot. Here's advice from Nobel Laureate theoretical physicist Gerardus t'Hooft.

If you look at pretty much any book written for particle physics and Lie Groups they cover examples first (usually spin and angular momentum), but I don't think you'll find exactly what you are looking for. Lie Groups for Pedestrians starts by generating representations of the SU(2) Lie Algebra using creation and annihilation operators, so it might be along the lines of what you are looking for.

Edit: Also, I believe Ryder's book on QFT explicitly uses co-sets and more formal aspects of group theory to talk about gauge-fixing. That might be a good place to look for how those more formal ideas are applied. Of course, Weinberg's book on QFT (vol 2.) also talks about some aspects of representation theory with examples that might be a good way to connect to the math you are cranking out (for example how the adjoint representation relates to gauge bosons).

I really enjoyed Thomson's Modern Particle Physics, but it's aimed at advanced undergrads who have taken quantum mechanics. It's a great book for understanding modern phenomenology, as it was published in 2013.

Well if you are willing to delve into a textbook I would recommend Griffiths, it starts by introducing the history of particle physics, which is pretty cool, and the initial chapters aren't tooooo math heavy. You will probably need to have taken a course in quantum mechanics though.

For something less technical than a textbook, I can't give you a solid recommendation, but I've heard good things about The Infinity Puzzle.

My graduate particle physics class used Modern Particle Physics by Thomson (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1107034264/ref=pe_385040_30332190_TE_3p_dp_1) which I liked better than the Griffiths book (which I used during the graduate particle physics class I took in undergrad). Good focus on experimental results and how they tied into the development of the field, if I recall correctly.

I think from my rudimentary understanding of quantum mechanics that the probabilistic model is currently more favoured by physicists since the work of Heisenberg. I'm reading a really cool book called The Particle Hunters which is about the history of particle physics. It mentions this paradigm shift from a deterministic to a probabilistic universe and explains it quite well.

My University has one of the best nuclear physics programs in the country, and This is what we use (I'm a first year undergrad in physics, so I don't have any personal experience with this text, but I figured maybe I could still offer an option. :) ).

Great article, the work that Knorr Cetina is doing at CERN is sometimes called embedded humanism.

An older book (but good!) is Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists

Subatomic Physics by Henley and Garcia is a very accessible book. We're using it for our upper div nuclear physics series and it's been very good so far. It's not very rigorous but will teach you nuclear physics very well. I see used copies for about $15 on amazon currently.

http://www.amazon.com/Subatomic-Physics-Ernest-M-Henley/dp/9812700560/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301974962&sr=8-1

You remind me a lot of those guys at the party who want to sound smart in areas they have superficial knowledge of.

ok! so, this is a good intro to the 5 dimensional theory http://www.weylmann.com/kaluza.pdf

Once you've read that this is a nice one http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9805018v1.pdf

other than that I can recommend you papers but they might not be easy to find. Many of the best ones are in http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Kaluza-Klein-Theories-Frontiers-Physics/dp/0201098296 as you may see the book is ridiculously expensive. Nonetheless my uni had it so you might be lucky...

I found Thomson's book called modern particle physics a great read

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Particle-Physics-Mark-Thomson/dp/1107034264

cheng&li
I loved this book

Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MN96BHW/

Edit: Griffith’s book on particle physics is also an excellent introduction to QFT.

Well, I don't mind reading a few equations. My former institute would be ashamed of me if I couldn't even do that.

Let me clarify. By "non-mathematical", I don't want to read pages and pages of derivations, justifications, and proofs. I want to get a book with excellent qualitative descriptions of the particles, their functions, the stories behind their discoveries, experimental descriptions of the verification of each one, and how they interact with each other.

I've been looking at these few titles:

http://www.amazon.com/Standard-Model-Primer-Cliff-Burgess/dp/0521860369

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Standard-Model-Particle-Physics/dp/0521852498/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342797161&sr=1-2&keywords=standard+model

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Elementary-Particles-David-Griffiths/dp/3527406018/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b


Do you any experience with these few?

Hm... I would have to say Griffiths' particle physics book and Halzen and Martin begin to cover the transition between undergrad-level knowledge and the general area I work in. Although for what I actually work on, I don't know if there are any textbooks. It's a pretty niche field.

I quite like

Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MN96BHW/

Most of your questions can be answered by reading a text such as Quarks and Leptons. Chapters 13 and 14 go through the structure of the Standard Model Lagrangian. You can also use a program like MadGraph to compute scattering amplitudes and Feynman diagrams.

The canonical intro to SUSY: http://www.amazon.com/Supersymmetry-Particle-Physics-Elementary-Introduction/dp/0521880238

I'd switch out Griffith's 'Elementary Particles' book with Thompson's Particle Physics instead

Here's an elementary textbook.

I would spend some time learning math first.

Author of two widely used undergratuate physics texts: one for Electricity and Magnetism and one for Quantum Mechanics. He also authored the somewhat-less-widely used (perhaps mainly because it's a specialist subject in most undergrad programs) Introduction to Elementary Particles.

Thats it for purely skeptic books, but some other science ones are

EDIT: Found this page http://www.csicop.org/si/show/skeptical_books_for_children_and_young_adults/

Uncle Albert

http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Quantumland-Allegory-Quantum-Physics/dp/0387914951/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381345002&sr=8-1&keywords=alice+in+quantum+land

http://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Universe-Not-so-Grimm-cosmology/dp/0387955666/ref=la_B001ILHHJM_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381345017&sr=1-5

http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Quarks-Fantasy-Particle-Physics/dp/0387950710/ref=la_B001ILHHJM_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381345017&sr=1-2