Culture | Hide and seek

Peter Higgs and his boson have both been “Elusive”

Frank Close tells their story in his aptly titled book

Editorial use only. This image may not be used to state or imply endorsement by CERN of any product, activity or service Simulated detection of Higgs boson. Computer simulation of an event in which the decay of a Higgs boson produces four muons (yellow tracks). The muons, along with countless other particles (red tracks), are produced in a head-on collision between two protons. The white dots represent detector elements which have been triggered. The Higgs boson is a localised clustering in the Higgs Field. This field permeates space, and local distortions of the Higgs Field are thought to be the way that particles gain mass. This image shows how the Higgs boson might be seen in the ATLAS detector on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory.

Elusive. By Frank Close. Basic Books; 304 pages; $26. Allen Lane; £25

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