86 Books Like At the Edge of Time

This book is an extraordinary romp through the discoveries in particle physics during its formative years, from the electron and x-rays, through the muon, antimatter, and the dizzying particle zoo of the 1950s and 1960s. The book tells a lot of history that books focused on science simply gloss over. It’s a fun and interesting read and you will have a much better appreciation of how scientists learned what they have about the subatomic world.

This book tells the history of the development of the theory of the Higgs boson. It names names and gives dates over the past half a century, pointing out who the major players were and how they interacted as the theory was developed. Perhaps the first surprise is it wasn’t all done by Peter Higgs. Indeed, Higgs was one of many laboring on this very interesting theoretical challenge. And, as I was a member of the research group that discovered the Higgs boson, I was very interested in understanding the history of the theory.

It is perhaps unfair to pick this book, as it is one I wrote, but it really is an unparalled book on the subject of the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC), currently the most powerful particle accelerator on the planet. The book contains some physics and technical information on the LHC and the detectors arrayed around it. It tells the stories of the startup, including the catastrophic damage that took two years to repair, and the accelerator’s triumphant return to operations. It tells insider tales of the assembly of the detectors and also gives an insider’s view of the discovery of the Higgs boson. No other book gives the reader such an intimate window seat to see how this amazing technical leviathan came into being.

While scientists know a great deal about the matter around us, it turns out that ordinary matter is a mere 5% of the matter and energy of the universe. A full 95% is of an unknown type. A substance called dark matter makes up 25% of the energy budget of the universe, while dark energy makes up the remaining 70%. This book focuses on the unknown 95% of the universe. No person will understand the rules that govern the universe, without a thorough understanding of these as-yet-undiscovered substances.

This 1986 book (revised in 1999) helped me to understand the Big Bang theory. I read it during a holiday in Italy when I was just starting my career as an astronomy writer. What I had read about the Big Bang so far was either extremely elementary (not really explaining anything at all) or full of jargon and dense with equations.

But John Gribbin knew exactly how to strike the perfect balance between the two. While my wife and one-year-old son were enjoying the swimming pool, I delved into quantum physics, expanding space, and the cosmic background radiation, all presented at a level an interested high-school student could understand.

Obviously, some parts of this book are obsolete by now, but it’s still one of my all-time favorites.

As I recall, this short summary ranges a bit more widely than the two volumes I've listed above. It is short, accessible and to the point, with rather more emphasis on the theory than the observations. I like the fact that it looks forward to possible new discoveries about our Universe and provides a glimpse of topics that lie outside the mainstream of contemporary cosmology. Quantum cosmology, anyone?

For those wanting to delve deeper into cosmology, I can strongly recommend this clearly written college-level textbook. It develops the equations that govern the expansion of the Universe and shows how they depend on the kinds of matter and radiation that fill the Universe. It explains the origin of structures like galaxies and clusters of galaxies and how that structure evolved over time. And it examines the observations, including of the CMB, that have transformed cosmology into a precision science. 

I’ve used it often in classes; I love it, and the students do too.

The numbers in physics have always fascinated me. Many think of physics as full of impenetrable equations. Some, like E=mc squared and F=ma, are associated with famous names, Einstein and Newton. But on their own, equations don’t tell us what’s happening. Numbers breathe life into equations, giving meaning to the symbols. In Rees’s beautiful book, he identifies six numbers that have led to the universe around us and to the extraordinary complexity of the world we live in. 

And they are just numbers, like 3 or 0.007. Only six numbers? So few seem astonishing. Modern physics and cosmology do identify others. But in all cases, the conclusion is that you can’t change them, not even a little, and still end up with a universe and world like ours. 

While now somewhat dated, this book remains a masterpiece of science writing for the educated public. I love and recommend it because it never talks down to the reader. The book treats all of cosmology briefly but concentrates on the earliest moments of the extraordinary history of our cosmos.

In the fiery first few minutes of time, when the entire Universe was hotter than the center of the Sun, the helium that now fills party balloons was forged, and the structure of the current Universe was laid down. Weinberg presents the physics of the early Universe with care and precision.

This is a no-nonsense look at the Big Bang theory with a large dose of current scientific theory and a small dose of modern philosophy.

I like how Krauss doesn’t pull his punches concerning either, yet he still manages to present his opinions with a wry sense of humor. Despite being a cutting-edge theoretical physicist, he doesn’t talk down to the reader; a layperson, as well as a scientist (me), can enjoy it. And I did!