Didn't read all of this as there's a NOVA documentary about it coming ~

( when back and read it, good to read right after Seife's book ) ( )

How the neutrino was hypothesized, detected and utilized in astronomy and physics -- a story of the Twentieth Century. ( )

Didn't read all of this as there's a NOVA documentary about it coming ~

( when back and read it, good to read right after Seife's book ) ( )

The title is a bit misleading, as this is less a book about neutrinos as such, than a history of the discovery and study of neutrinos. So, you don't get a systematic scientific treatise of neutrino physics. Instead, you have a fascinating story about the gradual discovery of the mystery. It is as much about the scientists themselves as about the actual experiments and ideas.

The book reads like a detective novel, and is a tremendous good read. The hardcore physicists may want more science, but for the average reader (like me), this is the most exciting book about particle physics you're likely to read. ( )

A not-too-long history of detection experiments in the physics of neutrinos, the ultra-ghostly particles associated with the weak interaction. Example: how the Super Kamiokande lab (Japan) and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (Canada) resolved the missing-solar-neutrinos problem and established that the e-, mu-, and tau-varieties of the particle mutate into one another.