The Matter of Everything: How Curiosity, Physics, and Improbable Experiments Changed the World

A physicist’s surprising, fascinating journey through the experiments that unlocked the nature of matter and gave rise to the technology that ushered us into the modern world.

Physics has always been engaged in the pursuit of expanding our knowledge of the nature of matter and the world around us. But how can you use experiments to further this quest? How do you measure the mass of a particle a trillion times smaller than a grain of sand? How do you capture the movement of particles that have traveled billions of miles through deep space into our atmosphere? And, finally, why is all this important?

In The Matter of Everything, accelerator physicist Suzie Sheehy introduces us to the people who, through a combination of genius, persistence and luck, staged the experiments that changed the course of history. From the serendipitous discovery of X-rays in a German laboratory, to the scientists trying to prove Einstein wrong (and inadvertently proving him right), to the race to split open the atom, these experiments not only shaped our understanding of the cosmos, but also shaped how we live within it. These breakthroughs have helped us build detectors that map the insides of volcanoes, develop life-saving medical equipment and create electronic devices used in everything from fiber-optic cables to solar panels—among countless other advancements.

Along the way, Sheehy pulls back the curtain to reveal how physics is really done—not only by theorists with blackboards, but by experimentalists with brilliant designs. Celebrating human ingenuity, creativity and above all curiosity, The Matter of Everything is an inspiring story of discovery, and a powerful reminder that progress is a function of our desire to know.