Harry Cliff - How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch: In Search of the Recipe for Our Universe

As I sit here in September 2020, I cannot quite believe that this book, or at least the words that will eventually go into it, are finally written. That Ive gotten to this point is almost entirely thanks to the generosity, encouragement, patience, expertise, insight, advice, and occasional sharp shoves from dozens and dozens of people.

I am enormously grateful to the many scientists who gave their time so generously to talk to me, show me around their extraordinary workplaces, introduce me to their colleagues, or review parts of the manuscript, in particular: Gianpaolo Bellini, Aldo Ianni, Matthias Junker, Jennifer Johnson, Matt Kenzie, Sarah Williams, Jeffrey Hangst, Nick Manton, Joe Giaime, Karen Kinemuchi, Helen Caines, Zhangbu Xu, Lijuan Ruan, Juan Maldacena, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Joseph Conlon, Sabine Hossenfelder, Isabel Rabey, Sidney Wright, Panos Charitos, John Ellis, Sean Carroll, Gnther Dissertori, and Michael Benedikt. Id particularly like to thank David Tong and Ben Allanach for reviewing the later chapters and for gently correcting me on some of the more difficult theory bits. The book has far fewer errors thanks to them, though of course any remaining mistakes are mine. And while Ive only been able to mention a few people specifically, I also owe an unquantifiable debt to my 1,400 colleagues on the LHCb experiment, as well as to the tens of thousands of people in the global scientific community and to the billions of taxpayers all over the world who fund basic, curiosity-driven research. Without them there would have been nothing to write about in the first place.

Special thanks to Graham Farmelo for his sage advice about the process of writing a book, getting me access to the hallowed halls of high theory, and for his warm encouragement. Thanks also to Neil Todd for a wonderful day as he guided me around Rutherfords old lab in Manchester.

Im grateful to the excellent staff at the Rayleigh Library at the Cavendish Laboratory and the Science Museum Dana Research Centre and Library, particularly to the always kind and helpful Prabha Shah. Thanks also to my high school physics teacher John Ward, both for inspiring and putting up with me as a teenager and for arranging the loan of a microscope, with the kind approval and help of Caroline Marwood.

This book would not have been possible without the support and forbearance of my boss, Val Gibson, who has been unfailingly encouraging throughout my career in physics and to whom I owe a huge debt. Thank you, Val. Im also really grateful to my colleagues at the Science Museum, particularly Ali Boyle, from whom I learned a huge amount about how to communicate science and its history, and who gave me so many great opportunities to get better at it.

I would like to thank my brilliant agent Simon Trewin, who helped me turn what had been a very long-gestating idea into something worth writing and made this whole thing possible in the first place. Huge thanks also to Dorian Karchmar at WME in New York for doing such a fantastic job persuading U.S. publishers to talk to a British guy about apple pie, and also to the team at WME in London, especially James Munro, Florence Dodd, and Anna Dixon.

Thank you to my editors, Ravi Mirchandani at Picador and Yaniv Soha at Doubleday. In particular, thanks to Ravi for so enthusiastically backing the arguably rather silly concept from the outset, and to Yaniv for his thoughtful and insightful feedback, which unquestionably resulted in a far better book. Thanks also to Mel Northover for turning my crappy diagrams into something far more appealing and to Amy Ryan for her forensic copyedit and for catching lots of my silly mistakes.

Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for their love and support over the past eighteen months. To Suzie, thank you for all the mutual book-writing counseling sessionsyou helped make the process feel much less lonely. I owe a special debt to my sister, Alexandra, who first suggested that perhaps I should think about writing a book almost a decade ago, a suggestion that ultimately led here. And very last but by absolutely no means least I want to thank my parents, Vicky and Robert, not only for reading and commenting on every last word of this manuscript, but for always being available when I needed to bounce ideas around, have a moan, or just needed a cup of tea and a chat. Thank you for always encouraging me to be curious; this is all your fault.