Buy it, read it, be awestruck
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Although his name is not as well known in the public eye as other more high profile physicists, Murray Gell-Mann can fairly lay claim to being one of the intellectual godfathers of the scientific revolution known as the new physics. In particular, Gell-Mann 'discovered' (in conjunction with, but quite separately from George Zweig, in a startling piece of synchronicity/coincidence) the quark model of particles previously believed to be elementary---in other words, the fact that the bits that make up atoms are themselves not fundamental but built up out of still smaller (and even weirder!) units, which Gell-Mann (borrowing a line from James Joyce's 'Finnegan's Wake') labelled 'quarks'. This wholly remarkable book is in fact, to my mind, two books in one; a straight biography tracing the life of one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of our time as well as in-depth work of popular science, giving the reader a simple though never distorted picture of one of the most mysterious and enigmatic areas of contemporary sub-atomic physics. This, as well as the book's blessedly clear and highly readable style, make it an absolute must for any lay reader, not well versed in the arcane mysteries of quantum physics perhaps, who wishes to understand the basic stuff of which the Universe is made and one of the most remarkable products of the human scientific quest. Brilliant from beginning to end.
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