A book that was missing in the panorama of scientific dissemination. The science of the atomic nucleus in all its aspects, accessible to everyone because it is illustrated in a clear, rigorous and accessible way, always in the historical and philosophical-conceptual context: the structure of the nucleus, radioactive decay, the tunnel effect, the mysterious neutrino , Einstein’s mass-energy relationship, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, the transmutation of the elements. The journey then continues on a cosmic scale, since it is thanks to nuclear physics that it has been possible to explain the energy of the stars, the evolution of the universe starting from the Big Bang, the formation of the elements and its meaning in the path that leads to birth of life. In the other direction, the book goes even deeper into the recesses of the nucleus to talk about its ultimate constituents, the quarks, and how the Standard Model of elementary particles is structured.
An exhilarating and surprising scientific journey that intersects with the stories of the giants who founded and developed nuclear physics and stole its secrets: Henri Becquerel, Marie and Pierre Curie, Ernest Rutherford, George Gamow, Wolfgang Pauli, Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, Fred Hoyle, Murray Gell-Mann and many others. Enrico Fermi and the boys from via Panisperna are naturally part of this select group, with the particular stories of Bruno Pontecorvo and Ettore Majorana.