The book Het Eiland dat Higgs heet by Nikhef director Stan Bentvelsen and Nikhef communications director Martijn van Calmthout has won the Cosmos Book Prize 2023.
This was announced Friday evening during a meeting in Amsterdam. The book about ten years of research into the Higgs particle discovered at CERN in 2012 was awarded the prize by the Cosmos school jury.
Cosmos boekenprijs 2023, Crea
Foto: Bob Bronshoff
The professional jury awarded the book Ongekend by Margriet van der Heijden, about forgotten women in the natural sciences. Both books were published in Dutch only.
The Cosmos book prize is an initiative based on the Italian model of Amsterdam physicist Gianfranco Bertone and the monthly magazine New Scientist, intended to interest schoolchildren in popular science books.
Het Eiland dat Higgs heet (published by LIAS Publishers) takes the form of a travel guide, exploring with the reader the conceptual landscape that the discovery of the Higgs particle in 2012 revealed to physics. The foreword was written by Nobel prize laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft.
The book recounts the journey there, the known attractions and the still-unknown distant areas, which are still undergoing research. Stan Bentvelsen is one of the ATLAS researchers involved in the Higgs discovery.