Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World
&#8220;Written with dry wit and ice-cool clarity. A book anyone at all interested in science must read. Surely the science book of the year.&#8221; (Sunday Times (London))&#8220;Startlingly honest [and] beautifully written. . . . Randall&#8217;s calm authority and clarity of explanation are exemplary. . . . Like being taken behind the curtain in Oz and given a full tour by the wizard.&#8221; (New Scientist)&#8220;[Randall is] one of the more original theorists at work in the profession today. . . . She gives a fine analysis of the affinity between scientific and artistic beauty, comparing the broken symmetries of a Richard Serra sculpture to those at the core of the Standard Model.&#8221; (New York Times Book Review)&#8220;[A] whip-smart inquiry into the scientific work being conducted in particle physics. . . . [Randall] brings a thrumming enthusiasm to the topic, but she is unhurried and wryly humorous. . . . [Knocking on Heaven&#8217;s Door] dazzles like the stars.&#8221; (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))&#8220;The general reader&#8217;s indispensable passport to the frontiers of science.&#8221; (Booklist (starred review))&#8220;[Randall&#8217;s] eloquent book details the trials and tribulations of the [Large Hadron Collider], from conception to implementation, and takes us on a grand tour of the underlying science.&#8221; (Nature)&#8220;Offers the reader a glimpse of the future. . . . An enlightening and exciting read.&#8221; (San Francisco Book Review)&#8220;Valuable and engaging. . . . Randall&#8217;s generous cornucopia of ideas, her engaging style, and above all her deep excitement about physics make this a book that deserves a wide readership.&#8221; (American Scientist)&#8220;Full of passion and jaw-dropping facts. . . . A fascinating account of modern particle physics, both theoretical and practical.&#8221; (The Independent on Sunday)&#8220;Beautifully written. . . . An impressive overview of what scientists (of any kind) get up to, how they work and why science is an inherently creative endeavor.&#8221; (Times Higher Education (London))&#8220;Randall&#8217;s witty, accessible discussion reveals the effort and wonder at hand as scientists strive to learn who we are and where we came from.&#8221; (Publishers Weekly)&#8220;Randall manages to transform . . . experiments at distant and unfamiliar scales into crucial acts in a cosmic drama.&#8221; (Daily Beast)&#8220;An exciting read about the very edge of modern science. . . . [Knocking on Heaven&#8217;s Door] inspires a sense of awe, appreciation and excitement for what the future holds.&#8221; (Daily Texan)&#8220;Very accessible, readable, and appealing to a broad audience. . . . Randall&#8217;s passion and excitement for science and physics is infectious and welcome in our digital age.&#8221; (New York Journal of Books)&#8220;Lisa Randall has writtenKnocking on Heaven&#8217;s Doorin the same witty, informal style with which she explains physics in person, making complex ideas fascinating and easy to understand. Her book . . . just might make you think differently&#151;and encourage you to make smarter decisions about the world.&#8221; (President Bill Clinton)&#8220;A deep and deeply wonderful explanation of how science&#151;and the rest of the known universe&#151;actually works.&#8221; (Daniel Gilbert, author ofStumbling on Happiness)&#8220;Lisa Randall is the rarest rarity&#151;a theoretical physics genius who can write and talk to the rest of us in ways we both understand and enjoy. This book takes nonspecialists as close as they&#8217;ll ever get to the inner workings of the cosmos.&#8221; (Lawrence H. Summers, President Emeritus of Harvard University)&#8220;Science has a battle for hearts and minds on its hands: a battle on two fronts&#151;against superstition and ignorance on one flank, and against pseudo-intellectual obscurantism on the other. How good it feels to have Lisa Randall&#8217;s unusual blend of top flight science, clarity, and charm on our side.&#8221; (Richard Dawkins, author ofThe Selfish GeneandThe God Delusion)&#8220;Randall&#8217;s lucid explanations of . . . the frontiers of physics-including her own dazzling ideas-are highly illuminating, and her hearty defense of reason and science is a welcome contribution. . . . Read this book today to understand the science of tomorrow.&#8221; (Steven Pinker, author ofHow the Mind WorksandThe Stuff of Thought)&#8220;Lisa Randall does a great job of explaining to the non-physicist the basic science approaches of modern physics and what the latest experiments might reveal. . . . This is a must read to appreciate what is coming in our future.&#8221; (J. Craig Venter, sequencer of the human genome and developer of the first synthetic life)&#8220;I didn&#8217;t think it was possible to write a complex, detailed look at the world of physics that the non-scientist could understand, but then Lisa Randall wrote this amazing, insightful, and engaging book and proved me wrong.&#8221; (Carlton Cuse, award&#150;winning producer and writer ofLost)