Book review: Exploring the Mystery of Matter

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CERN's Large Hadron Collider is the largest and most powerful particle accelerator that the world has seen so far. It is a supreme expression of our collective scientific and technological ambition. It transcends national boundaries with components made in many countries and with more than 2000 people from more than 170 institutions worldwide participating in the experiments. The construction of LHC and the detectors is a story that is as varied and as interesting as the people involved in it.

LHC has six detectors. Of the these, ATLAS is the largest and most ambitious. Commissioned by CERN, EXPLORING THE MYSTERY OF MATTER, The ATLAS Experiment is a photo book that captures the key moments of the construction of ATLAS. The book traces the history of LHC, the years and years of labor and patience of almost thousands of physicists, engineers and other CERN staff, the technology - of which most was designed and built from scratch, the data capture and computational infrastructure that has pushed the boundaries of what is possible, and much more.

The book opens with a full page photograph of ATLAS under construction (above) where the world's largest toroidal magnets - eight of them - are already in place around the core, an engineer standing in the middle of it is dwarfed by the magnets, which when fully powered will contain enough power to lift Eiffel Tower. This is an excellent book to enjoy the visual splendor and the intellectual excitement of ATLAS detector. Parts of the book are online at http://www.atlasbook.ch. You can buy the book at Amazon or other bookstores. The book is published by PAPADAKIS.

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