A new book about 12 experiments that changed the world sidelines the role of beautiful theory in physics

Simulation of lead ion collisions within the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider -- one of eight detector experiments. CERN

The Matter of Everything tells the history of physics through experiments. Any book about the history of science for a general audience will, of necessity, be something of a distortion. The question is whether the distortion is useful: does it offer a new perspective on the history of physics? While there is much to like about the book, I found it to be largely polemic and unhelpful.

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