Jon Butterworth, a leading physicist on the ATLAS project at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, gives us the first inside account of the hunt for the Higgs, and of life at the collider itself : the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, 17 miles long, 20 stories underground, and designed to 'replay' the original Big Bang by smashing subatomic particles at nearly the speed of light. Revelling in the hard science, which he carefully reconstructs for readers of all levels, and in the messiness, uncertainty, and humanness of science, from the media scrutiny and late-night pub debates, to the false starts and intense pressure to generate results, Butterworth captures a moment when an entire field hinged on the proof or disproof of a 50-year-old theory. He explains why physics will never be the same after our first glimpse of the elusive Higgs, and where it will go from here.

First published : London : Headline Publishing Group, 2014 as Smashing physics.

Before the data -- Restart -- High energy -- Standard Model -- Rumours and limits -- First Higgs hints and some crazy neutrinos -- Closing in -- Discovery -- What next?