Atom Land

A Guided Tour through the Strange (and Impossibly Small) World of Particle Physics

By: Jon Butterworth

Narrated by: Wayne Forester

Atom Land brings the impossibly small world of particle physics to life, taking listeners on a guided journey through the subatomic world. Listeners will sail the subatomic seas in search of electron ports, boson continents, and hadron islands. The sea itself is the quantum field, complete with quantum waves. Beware dark energy and extra dimensions, embodied by fantastical sea creatures prowling the far edges of the known world.

Your tour guide through this whimsical - and highly instructive - world is Jon Butterworth, leading physicist at CERN (the epicenter of today's greatest findings in physics). Over a series of journeys, he shows how everything fits together and how a grasp of particle physics is key to unlocking a deeper understanding of many of the most profound mysteries - and science's possible answers - in the known universe.

©2017, 2018 Jon Butterworth (P)2018 Blackstone Publishing

Great alternative to standard perspective.

My headline means that this book is an alternative way to review the material as long as you already have some basic understanding of this topic. I would not recommend it as a primary text, but highly praise it for a review and clarification. This book seem to fill in many holes in my knowledge of this topic because it provides a way to think "outside the box" and gave me many "ah-ha" moments. Sometimes you need multiple perspectives to cover areas where we all have preconceptions and confirmation bias that obscure some important details. I do realize that many professionals in the field will poo-poo this book as being too basic or irrelevant. But for readers like me, who have been piecing this information together from multiple sources over many years, it may provide a summary that ties all the loose ends together buy tying a "story" to a complex subject. Relating this information to a story provides a memory aid as well as provided some brain hacks to help form and or solidify difficult concepts.
I think this work was ingenious for people in my situation. Kudos!

Get your learning ears on

excellent intro to particle physics, the story is interesting with fun comparisons and wonderful thought games

Confusing metaphorical geography.

The information was good enough, but it got very confusing when he kept referring to Airports, Cities, Islands, East, Southeast, Volcanoes and more. I gave up with just an hour left because I couldn’t keep track of his imaginary geography. Was the volcano a boson and the island was leptons... or were the raindrops bosons and quarks were in the southeast?

Fantastic!

If you're struggling to understand the complex relationships that exist within the "Particle Zoo", you've come to the right place. For a broad-stroke conceptual overview of the Standard Model, Butterworth delivers better than anyone that I've come across. Forester's performance is also of the highest quality.
I highly recommend this book to anyone, of any educational background, who is interested in actually understanding what the Standard Model really says, and what it doesn't.
This is one of those books that I will listen to again and again over the years.

The quantum Miss Fizzle

You remember the magic school bus? I do. Miss Fizzle was really cool. On her magic school bus she took the viewer from place to place passionately attentive she talks about wonder that surrounds us. This book does exactly that. It guides a beginner enthusiast thru the world of physics as we know it today one field at a time. In this book you explore the big questions of science, who asked them and when, and what their answers have been and how they’ve changed over time. This is a top recommended read for any physics enthusiast from me.