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Christmas books Philippe Blondel
Steve Allen/Science Photo Librar y
Listening to the world
Small waves lap the side of our boat, making relaxing sounds. Every now and then, the little icebergs melting around us add their clinking noises, while the larger bergs bump gently against the boat’s rubber tubes as we drift past a large glacier. When parts Sonic Wonderland: a Scientific Odyssey of the glacier’s front wall collapse, we all jump. The loud explosion is folof Sound lowed by a series of surface waves, Trevor Cox gentle at first but carrying blocks of 2014 The Bodley ice that weigh in excess of 50 tonnes. Head £20.00hb Underwater, the general hissing 320pp sound, interrupted by slapping from the waves and crackling from the ice, reaches high intensities as it echoes from the sides of the fjord. The ocean off the coast of Svalbard, where I spent last summer measuring underwater noise, is definitely not the “silent world” of Jacques Cousteau fame. But this should not surprise us. Most of the world is, in fact, full of sound – sound that is always there for us to sense, if we can stop ourselves relying only on visual stimuli. Sonic Wonderland is the perfect reminder of this rich soundscape. Before being asked to review this book for Physics World, I had seen it in advertisements and Sounds of science Even apparently serene land (or sea) scapes are full of sound.
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decided that its price tag was a bit too high. Now, having read it, I wonder why I did not jump on it immediately, regardless of the price. What comes first out of this book is the sheer variety of acoustic processes, how mysterious and entrancing they can be, and how understanding the physics behind them adds another dimension to their enjoyment. Not only that, but reading it made me want to travel all over the world to discover the acoustic wonders that the author, Trevor Cox, explains so passionately and so well. The book’s chapters logically go from the loudest to the quietest places on Earth, placing sound in its wider human or natural context. We learn about simple sounds and how they are distorted by their environment, from reverberation under bridges or in sewers to echoes and whispering galleries. Relevant examples are presented alongside interesting stories about how British birdsong nearly leaked war secrets to the Nazis during the Second World War; how unusual echoes in the castle at Chinon, France, can be used to make calumnious accusations; and
how church bells could be heard far out at sea without the need for supernatural explanations. On a related note (pun unintended), the urban legend that playing music backwards leads to satanic indoctrination is safely laid to rest, as the author explains that this process produces only meaningless noise, regardless of what record is played. In addition to these historical anecdotes, we also learn about acoustics in a range of different buildings, from the author’s house (and bathroom) to churches, mosques and concert halls around the world. We come to understand what makes a “good” sound and what can be done to avoid unwanted echoes and the hubbub usually associated with badly designed cafeterias. The sounds of instruments appear in several chapters, with sections on the saxophone, violins, brass and, of course, organs and bells – including the author’s first-hand account of experiencing Big Ben’s chimes from inside the tower. Natural spaces have their own peculiar acoustics, and we learn about Stonehenge and other antique sites, as well as tidal bores, waterfalls and even simple bubbles. With clear diagrams (and sometimes the support of audio clips on the book’s accompanying website), Cox demystifies these natural noises, explaining how sands can “burp”, how rocks can “sing” and why city-dwelling birds need to sing louder or later to adapt to urban life. In most cases, he has gone to study these sounds himself – measuring them, analysing them, and beautifully reporting on how they work and what they mean. In my own recent holidays, I was lucky enough to hear the sound from stalagmites in French caves, and Cox’s presentation of the Great Stalactite Pipe Organ (including a very nice example on SoundCloud) shows how human ingenuity has made the most of these natural or near-natural sounds. Other examples of humannature sonic collaborations include Blackpool’s High-Tide Organ, which uses natural tides to create eerie and surprising sounds, as well as sculptures in London and further afield. I also learned with interest that musical roads do not exist only in Jasper Fforde’s novels, and I now know where to experience them directly. My speciality is under water P hy sic s Wor ld De c ember 2014
Christmas books
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sounds, so as I was reading (and enjoying) the book, I was also on the lookout for items directly relevant to my own experiences. I was not disappointed. Bearded seals and snapping shrimps, loud ships and quiet submarines – they are all there, clearly presented and exactly as heard around the world’s oceans. The clinking of ice and the noise of small bubbles coming from the melting of icebergs were even illustrated with examples from Iceland and Svalbard, to which I could directly relate. By adding numbers to these measurements, Trevor Cox also reiterates the fact that decibels underwater are definitely not the same as decibels in air (because of the different reference levels). My conclusion is that while
The world is out there to listen to and enjoy
coming festive season.) Inspired by this book, I now listen to the rumbling of the bus, the noise of the city, and of course the birds and cows on my way home. More importantly, this book has given me new ideas of places to explore: I want to listen to the Severn Bore and to trees in the forest; I want to visit concert halls this book is primarily intended for and go on soundwalks around my a popular-science audience, there is favourite cities. There is an entire enough to keep even field-hardened world to explore, and it’s out there professionals firmly interested. for us to listen to, and to enjoy. These few examples should make it clear that I loved this book. It is Philippe Blondel is a physicist at the definitely worth the price, and even if University of Bath and deputy director of the it seems strange to read about sound Centre for Space, Atmospheric and Oceanic instead of listening to it, Sonic Won- Science, e-mail
[email protected]. When derland is the perfect arrangement. time allows, he blogs at blogs.bath.ac.uk/ (It is also a great gift idea for the sounds-of-the-planet
Sabine Hossenfelder
CERN
A strong model, with flaws
Higgs revealed Where next for the Standard Model? Cracking the Particle Code of the Universe: the Hunt for the Higgs Boson John W Moffat 2014 Oxford University Press £19.99/$29.95hb 256pp
John Moffat’s new book covers the history of the Standard Model of particle physics from its beginnings to the recent discovery of the Higgs boson – or, as Moffat cautiously calls it, the new particle most physicists believe is the Standard Model Higgs. But Cracking the Particle Code of the Universe isn’t just any book about the Standard Model: it’s about the model as seen through the eyes of an insider, one who has witnessed many fads and statistical fluctuations come
P hy sic s Wor ld De c ember 2014
and go. As an emeritus professor at the University of Toronto, Canada and a senior researcher at the nearby Perimeter Institute, Moffat has the credentials to do more than just explain the theory and the experiments that back it up: he also offers his own opinion on the interpretation of the data, the status of the theories and the community’s reaction to the discovery of the Higgs. The first half of the book is mainly dedicated to introducing the reader
to the ingredients of the Standard Model, the particles and their properties, the relevance of gauge symmetries, symmetry breaking, and the workings of particle accelerators. Moffat also explains some proposed extensions and alternatives to the Standard Model, such as “technicolor”, supersymmetry, preons, additional dimensions and composite Higgs models as well as models based on his own work. In each case he lays out the experimental situation and the technical aspects that speak for and against these models. In the second half of the book, Moffat recalls how the discovery unfolded at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and comments on the data that the collisions yielded. He reports from several conferences he attended, or papers and lectures that appeared online, and summarizes how the experimental analysis proceeded and how it was interpreted. In this, he includes his own judgment and relates discussions with theorists and experimentalists. We meet many prominent people in particle physics, including Guido Altarelli, Jim Hartle and Stephen Hawking, to mention just a few. Moffat repeatedly calls for a cautious approach to claims that the Standard Model Higgs has indeed been discovered, and points out that not all necessary characteristics have been found. He finds that the experimentalists are careful with their claims, but that the theoreticians jump to conclusions. The book covers the situation up to March 2013, so of course it is already somewhat outdated; the
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