In a dusty display cabinet in the museum of the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory there sits a curiously shaped glass container with a few electrodes inside, like a ship in bottle. It is a replica of the first particle accelerator, used by J J Thomson to liberate electrons from atoms in 1897. Thomson’s breakthrough was the first step on the long quest to crack open the atom and reveal its inner workings. More than a century later, that same quest has produced the multibillion-pound experiments at the CERN lab in Geneva, which are poised to explore new territory in their search for the long-awaited Higgs boson, and to test whether our current understanding is only a shadow of a much richer reality.

The story of what came in between has all the makings of a Hollywood movie, and Massive: The Hunt for the God Particle could be the screenplay. The grand narrative in Ian Sample’s book sweeps from the earliest speculations on the nature of matter; through the Second World War and the dawn of nuclear weapons; the paranoia of the Cold War (during which science was seen as a source of national security); rival efforts by the US and Europe to lead the world in times of peace; and the eventual emergence of worldwide scientific co-operation. Swept along on that tide are the individual scientists who struggle to make sense of their equations and measurements while marrying, having children and fighting off both the manoeuvrings of their political funders and low blows from their rivals. This story is far from the stately intellectual progress by heroic lone geniuses that gets portrayed in some histories of science.

Massive carries the reader though the epic using individual episodes from the lives of some of the participants. These passages often read like a fast-paced novel, as, for example, when an aeroplane carrying evidence of the latest breakthrough “touched down with a brief screech of rubber” at a wintry Heathrow airport. This makes for an appealing read that is quite unlike a textbook narrative. The uncertainty faced by the scientists as they explore new theories and the agonizing decision to shut down the LEP collider at CERN just when the Higgs boson appeared to be in reach are brought to life by these human touches.

The central character is Peter Higgs, whose life story runs through the book. His early work, the famous publication suggesting the particle that now bears his name, and his subsequent career are all dealt with sympathetically, and reveal much about the scientific process. The real difficulties in knowing which directions to pursue, the dead ends, fears and frustrations are all covered. Like Higgs himself, Sample is careful to give due credit to all those involved in the development of electroweak theory. The gradual development of the theory, and particularly the way that multiple insights contributed to the solution, are both well covered. Sample also makes it clear that finding the boson will not signal the end of the story: in an excellent and topical chapter, he ad_dresses the implications of the Higgs mechanism for other new physics, tackling supersymmetry, extra space dimensions and hidden worlds with great clarity. This is a useful counter to the popular perception that particle physics is simply about the search for the Higgs.

The book avoids tackling the science head-on with long discussions of theory (or even any equations beyond E = mc²), and relies instead on straightforward descriptions of the key points backed up by lots of illustrative analogies. This works rather well, since the analogies are usually well chosen and there is no sense that the science has been over-simplified. Sample’s experience as a science correspondent for the Guardian newspaper pays off here.

A parallel narrative follows the development of the accelerators themselves, from table-top devices funded by small laboratories to vast international facilities. The rivalry between the US and Europe makes a fascinating sub-plot, and shows how much the science has been at the mercy of political events on both sides of the Atlantic. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, for example, was much criticized in the scientific community, but she nevertheless prevented the death of British particle physics, and thereby ensured the future of CERN. Meanwhile, her transatlantic counterpart President Ronald Reagan approved the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) so that the US would have “the most powerful…gun in the world” – only for it to founder in the pork-barrel politics of Washington.

Many of the factors behind the SSC’s demise are well known, but, strangely enough, it seems that both the first President Bush’s illness at a state banquet in Japan (which cast a pall over US efforts to get the Japanese to join the SSC collaboration) and the Arab–Israeli peace talks that took place during Bill Clinton’s presidency (which forced a campaign to save the collider off the news agenda) also contributed to its downfall. However, the final blow came from the Congressional allocation process, which ensured that support melted away once a decision had been taken on which state would host the facility, and hence receive the bulk of the funding. The benefit to Europe of having a recognized shared facility at CERN becomes very clear.

Sample’s account of the public reaction to events in particle physics is also fascinating. Initially, such an esoteric subject was portrayed as being of no conceivable use, and celebrated as a purely intellectual pursuit. The atomic bomb put paid to that view, and physicists became the focus of nationalistic and military aspirations. Now that the projects are too expensive for any single nation to fund, particle physics is seen as a shining example of international co-operation. The book is particularly strong on the supposed threat to the existence of the planet, or even the entire universe, posed by colliders, and the ensuing media debate.

The scene is now set for the final denouement, where the Higgs is either captured or revealed to be a chimera. The new heavyweight Large Hadron Collider at CERN is the favourite to win this final round, but the old champ, Fermilab’s Tevatron, is making is one last bid for the title. So the screenplay ends on a cliffhanger, leaving the audience ready for the sequel.

Since CERN has become the last word in geek-chic, every practising particle physicist has at some time been cornered by a friend or relative with a demand to “explain what is going on”. Now, at last, there is a simple answer: buy them this book, and get a copy for yourself.