Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit, and the Ultimate Experiment by Gary Taubes

Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit, and the Ultimate Experiment Reviews

• 
  Chloe Klare

  This is probably the most uninspiring book I’ve ever read, and it made me reconsider my plans of going into particle physics. It glorifies everything that is wrong with the physics community, from unethical and sloppy scientists, sexism, a toxic and exploitative culture of overworking, and the idea that it’s okay to be absolute asshole as long as you have a Nobel Prize. Also Rubbia literally did nothing but boss people around and take credit for other people’s work
• 
  Claire

  Nobel Dreams is a fascinating work of science journalism written by a former physicist that vividly captures experimental particle physics right at the turning point when larger collaborations and messier collisions of hadrons (as opposed to electron positron collisions) started to become the norm. Taube’s focus is on Carlo Rubbia, the head of the UA1 experiment at CERN, who won the Nobel Prize in 1984 for the discovery of the W and Z bosons that verified the Weinberg-Salam model of electroweak physics. His physics is solid and the book gives an important (and unfortunately rare) glimpse into the day-to-day realities of doing science and how this may not live up to the ideal. Written in the late 80’s right after the discovery, this book seems to have been forgotten but in my opinion should be revisited, especially given the relative dearth of books about the history of modern particle physics.
  
  I can’t overemphasize how interesting this book is from the point of view of someone who wasn’t around at the time but is interested in the history of the Standard Model. Given the sophisticated statistical techniques a graduate student working at the LHC must learn today, it is fascinating to learn of a time when important discoveries and even Nobel Prizes were decided based on a single or handful of events! The precise functions of different parts of the UA1 detector and how they were constructed, the spread of rumors and interplay between experimentalists and theorists, the differences between European and American science at the time, the politics of getting funding for such expensive experiments, etc. are all explained very thoroughly here. I found it especially interesting to learn in depth about the debate concerning whether supersymmetry was detected (or whether the anomalous events in question were background) soon after the 1984 Nobel. And on a personal note, I was pleasantly surprised to read so much about Bernard Sadoulet, a kind-hearted professor I remember from my time at Berkeley, although it was sad to learn how badly he was treated by Rubbia.
  
  The book implicitly raises important questions about the role of the Nobel Prize in physics. To be clear, Rubbia deserved his prize in the sense that the proton antiproton collider was his brainchild that he spent much time and effort pushing for before it was built at CERN, leading to the discovery of the W’s and Z. The allure of glory surely helped the pace of discovery. But this was also accompanied by much shady behavior that bordered on the unethical and frankly, resulted in bad science: results were rushed, backgrounds weren’t checked thoroughly enough, competing experiments were purposefully delayed, etc. The achievement never would have been possible by Rubbia alone, without supporting scientists like Sadoulet keeping the science rigorous and Rubbia’s interpretive leaps (many of which had been wrong in the past) in check. On top of this, the book makes it eminently clear what a big role politics plays in the Nobel Prize decision. For example, the discovery of the gluon (an equally fundamental particle) never won a Nobel due to having too many people involved as well as the lack of clarity within the community about the result, whereas Rubbia and van der Meer won theirs almost immediately in spite of the fact that the first highly advertised W event was not, in fact, actually a W. In Rubbia and van der Meer’s case, the advertising was simply done in a smart way that highlighted the correct number (3 or less) of leading scientists.
  
  Taubes paints a picture of Rubbia as a cruel dictator hated by many of his subordinates, which hopefully leads readers to contemplate the dangers of abuse of power within a scientific setting. At a time (now in 2018) when we are becoming familiar with the concept of "alternative facts," it is worth noting that there are people within the scientific community who follow this playbook to varying degrees: who state scientific “facts” or “results” knowing them to be untrue or on uncertain footing, relying on confidence and/or manipulations to convince others, and who lash out at even constructive criticism. Science is unique in the way it provides many checks and balances to self-correct for truth over time, but the system can still be abused in the short term for personal gain.
  
  There is furthermore reference in several places to Rubbia’s “rages” and “bullying.” This could have been a great opportunity to present some of the nuances of abuse/bullying within science, but unfortunately it falls short since Taubes never gives examples of this bullying. While I don’t doubt these claims to be true based on my own brief exposure to Rubbia over three decades later, it is a bit worrying to see Taubes so publicly attack someone’s character as a journalist without providing solid support for some of his claims. And this doesn’t apply only to Rubbia, for example he describes a woman physicist (Aurore Savoy-Navarro) as having an ego but doesn’t elaborate; the reader is just supposed to take his word for it. Another criticism is the fact that Taubes frequently describes men as “hot young physicists” while describing multiple women by invoking their attire (to be fair, he also discusses how this relates to one woman’s experiences of discrimination, since she felt many male physicists judged her for dressing well). This flaw in particular may be attributable to the time period (again, written in the 80’s) but also makes me question Taube’s objectivity when it comes to gender issues.
  
  Along those lines, I think this is a story worth revisiting through the lens of gender. Did Rubbia’s tyrannical style and bullying keep women out of the field? What really happened in that interaction with the “pretty” journalist Rubbia was distracted by? Did he treat the staff and younger women (e.g. students) as equitably as Taubes claims he treated the leading women researchers? We have a much better understanding of these issues now than we did in the 80’s, and in a field with so few women I think it is important to scrutinize possible gendered effects when claims of bullying, especially by such a prominent person, are raised.
• 
  Irene

  This book is particularly gripping, which is extraordinary considering the fact that this is more like a history/biography novel. I'm not sure how relatable this book would be to a non-physicist, but anyone can relate to the politics and personalities that the book describes.
• 
  Ciarán

  The physics equivalent to Watson's 'The Double Helix'. Very interesting read
• 
  Sean

  This book gave a very interesting look at the interior politics of Nobel level physics. Unfortunately I still don't know how the story of high energy physics has panned out since then.