David Harland describes the historical development of particle physics,
and explains, in a non-mathematical way, how particle physics has
influenced the structure of the Universe from the very beginning of time.
He demonstrates the close links between discoveries in particle physics
and in cosmology up to the present. He describes how our understanding of
the Universe has developed from the discovery that the Universe is
expanding, to the idea that all matter originated in a hot, Big Bang, then
explains the many subtle improvements to the basic theory that have been
necessary to understand how the very smallest particles and earliest
structures (the 'microscale') in the Universe evolved to produce the
Universe as it is now (the 'macroscale'). The author also describes how
scientists are attempting to develop a 'Theory of Everything' that would
explain how an instant after the Big Bang a single primordial force was
transformed into the four forces of nature that we observe today, which
hitherto were believed to be 'fundamental'.