Prologue: Journey to the Heart of the Large Hadron Collider.

Introduction: The Machinery of Perfection.

1 The Secrets of Creation.

2 The Quest for a Theory of Everything.

3 Striking Gold: Rutherford’s Scattering Experiments.

4 Smashing Successes: The First Accelerators.

5 A Compelling Quartet: The Four Fundamental Forces.

6 A Tale of Two Rings: The Tevatron and the Super Proton Synchrotron.

7 Deep in the Heart of Texas: The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider.

8 Crashing by Design: Building the Large Hadron Collider.

9 Denizens of the Dark: Resolving the Mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

10 The Brane Drain: Looking for Portals to Higher Dimensions.

11 Microscopic Black Holes: A Boon to Science or a Boom for the World?

Conclusion: The Future of High-Energy Physics: The International Linear Collider and Beyond.

Notes.

Further Reading.

Index.