The Search for Superstrings, Symmetry, and the Theory of Eve (North American)

Since Einstein's time, a "theory of everything" -- one coherent mathematical package that would unite all the forces and particles of nature -- has become the Holy Grail of physics, and its pursuit has resulted in some of the most extraordinary ideas in the history of science.

This invaluable primer enables all of us to understand these ideas.

John Gribbin first explains what is known about how subatomic particles work, then guides us through the research that has produced dazzling new models of the universe, among them the radical theories of "superstrings" -- the hypothesis that particles are loops of vibrating "string" -- and "supersymmetry".