For most of us chemists, our knowledge of the universe is pretty good from the atomic level upward, but when students ask us (as they sometimes do) about what it is that holds the nucleus together, or what a "string" is, or about quarks, leptons, and any of the other particles that are not electrons, protons, or neutrons, we begin to mumble. "The Search for Superstrings..." is a good solution to our problem. It is brief (less than 250 pages), and most of us can skip some of the first chapter (Quantum Physics for Beginners). Gribbon writes well. He skips complexities where he can, and mathematics altogether. I think his best book is the first one of his that I read, "In Search of Schroedinger's Cat", which has been updated as "Schroedinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality", but this one is also recommended. ( )

In Search of SUSY