From Atoms to Quarks by James S. Trefil (review)

Leonardo, Vol. 15, No. I, pp. 73-86, 1982. Pergamon Pres Ltd. Printed in Great Britain. BOOKS Readers are invited to recommend books to be reviewed. In general. only books in English and in French can be reviewed at this stage. Those who would like to be added to Leonardo's panel ofreviewers should write to the FounderEditor , indicating their particular interests. From Atoms to Quarks. James S. Trefil. Athlone Press, London, 1980. 225 pp., iIlus. Reviewed by Nan Conklin* 'The questions about how the material world is put together and what it is made of have long occupied the thoughts of men who would now be called physicists, Although these men lived thousands of miles and thousands of years apart, a single concept runs through their ideas like a unifying thread .. , . Perhaps we should call it a belief, a hope, a dream ... , They have assumed that when they knew enough to answer the questions fully, they would find that the world was really a simple, uncomplicated sort of place. When you consider the overwhelming complexity that we see around us, you have to appreciate what a tremendous leap of faith this was.' Thus begins this gem of a book. The subject, elementary particle physics, could scarcely be more esoteric or more intimidating to nonphysicists, but it is illuminated here by an author able to bring to its intricacies an understanding of the fundamental character of the search, a knowledge of those who are engaged in the search and an appreciation of the humor that lies in both. Although the recounting of the developments in particle physics is set in a philosophical and historical framework, it is primarily a serious, detailed and sometimes taxing (even to one trained in science) discussion of the theories, discoveries and puzzles of this ultrasmall world. The use of several techniques makes the effort of following these developments both easier and more pleasurable. One is the more than 100simple, very clear line drawings of atoms, accelerators, particles, collisions, etc. Another is the firm hold one isgiven on reality by the description of how one thing led to another-an unexpected discrepancy in an experiment to a new particle, the testing of a new hypothesis to a new property of particles or, simply, a more powerful laboratory machine to new wonders released by its power. The most engaging of the techniques for helping bewildered readers is that of giving them now and then a glimpse of the varied, clever and sometimes witty individuals who make the discoveries. The discoveries have led to the 'proliferation orgy' of new particles (hundreds of them)-to their classification according to their behavior (often unexpected and puzzling) and, finally, to the quark model with which physicists attempt to bring some order out of apparent chaos. Quarks have not quite fulfilled the promise of their inventors of providing the basic building blocks of which the particles consist, since there has been a proliferation of quarks. Their properties are whimsically described as 'strangeness', 'charm', 'color' and even 'flavor', 'Does this mean that we have to surrender the idea that nature is at some level, basically simple? Not necessarily .... [In the domain of] unified field theories the search for simplicity is very different .... [It] would be of an abstract and purely intellectual nature, something like plane geometry, where all the properties of figures follow from a few basic postulates.' I hope that Trefil will undertake in another book to guide interested but uninitiated readers through the research that seeks to unify understanding of the physical forces of the world. *Clay Road, North Thetford, VT 05053, U.S.A. 73 The Right Brain: A New Understanding of the Unconscious Mind and Its Creative Powers. Thomas R. Blakeslee. Anchor Press/Doubleday, New York, 1980, 275 pp., iIlus. $10.95. Reviewed by James A. Goldman* Physiologically, the cerebral cortex, which constitutes the top 80% of the brain, consists of two hemispheres of similar appearance connected by bundles of nerve fibers, the corpus callosum. Nonetheless, a person has only one mind and, generally, one personality. The two hemispheres, however, are not functionally identical. Injury of the left one, ordinarily, causes speech damage, for example, while injury of the...