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Physics books of 2018

Symmetry writer Mike Perricone presents his annual compilation of new popular science books related to particle physics and astrophysics. The array that Symmetry readers might have encountered in 2018 ranges from the philosophical to the whimsical.

Top quark couture

The mentorship of a scientist on the CMS experiment meant everything to Evan Coleman, a former physics undergraduate at Brown University. What do you give a physicist who helped discover a fundamental particle and jump-started your science career? Something individual, artistic and science-themed.

A proton describes its final moments in the Large Hadron Collider. During its second run, between 2015 and 2018, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN collided about 16 million billion particle pairs. This 3-minute animation is the story of one of them.

The agreement launches a multinational collaboration to build a powerful new accelerator at DOE’s Fermilab complex. Italy and its National Institute of Nuclear Physics will provide major contributions to the construction of the 176-meter-long superconducting particle accelerator that is the centerpiece of the PIP-II project.

View of Large Hadron Collider

During the last four years, LHC scientists have filled in gaps in our knowledge and tested the boundaries of the Standard Model. Since the start of Run II in March 2015, they’ve recorded an incredible amount of data —five times more than the LHC produced in Run I. The accelerator produced approximately 16 million billion proton-proton collisions — about one collision for every ant currently living on Earth.

Butler was one of 416 AAAS members nominated this year as fellows by their peers. He was recognized for distinguished contributions to the field of experimental particle physics, particularly for pioneering experiments in heavy flavor physics, and the leadership of large international experimental collaborations. New fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a rosette pin on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2019, during the 2019 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Gravitational lenses

Predicted by Einstein and discovered in 1979, gravitational lensing helps astrophysicists understand the evolving shape of the universe.