Dreams of a Final Theory

The author's first book The First Three Minutes was about the earliest moments of the universe, this book looks at the smallest and most elusive things making up that universe. Until we have found them, we cannot understand the world at its deepest and most fundamental level - the level at which different forces and forms of matter interact. It is only by smashing particles into each other at energies of thousands of millions of volts that these even tinier particles will be revealed. The Superconducting Supercollider in Texas, an underground ring 54 miles long, will have that power. But this book is more than the story of this enterprise - it is also a presentation for the non-scientists of the theories themselves, and what guides scientists in their search for the final theory of matter. It is also about the power of deeper and deeper levels of explanation to explain something as simple as a piece of chalk. The author of this book is a Nobel prize-winning physicist and leader of the project to build the Superconducting Supercollider.