The Fineness Imperfection that Gives Rise to Everything

Guido Tonelli is one of the most authoritative contemporary experimental physicists, a professor at the University of Pisa, a member of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and the author of numerous articles and several popular science books. In “The... Fineness Imperfection that Gives Rise to Everything,” he talks about the discovery of one of the most mysterious elementary particles—the Higgs boson. Tonelli was a direct participant in the events described; he worked on the Large Hadron Collider and was the official representative of the Higgs boson search experiment. Therefore, his account of how the most important discovery in elementary particle physics in recent decades took place is very vivid and personal.