C&EN talks with Suzie Sheehy, accelerator physicist

Abstract

In her new book The Matter of Everything: How Curiosity, Physics and Improbable Experiments Changed the World , accelerator physicist and science communicator Suzie Sheehy connects the wonders of modern technology to the fundamental research of the past century that made it possible. Sheehy tells the stories of 12 classic experiments in physics that transformed our understanding of how the world works. Anyone who has taken an introductory chemistry course will be familiar with many of the early chapters’ experiments, such as how J. J. Thomson used cathode ray tubes to discover electrons and how Ernest Rutherford and his students revealed the existence of the atomic nucleus using gold foil. Later sections of the book describe the gargantuan instruments that enabled scientists to detect for the first time elusive particles at the heart of the standard model, such as the neutrino and the Higgs boson. Through each tale, The Matter