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I'm asking for recommendations on an introductory book about the standard model of particle physics. There's a wide berth of styles that can be described as introductory so I'll describe what I'm looking for specifically below.

I'm a fourth year engineering student. So I'm not a physics student but I'm comfortable with math. I've taken several pure physics courses for a minor so I have very basic experience with QM, relativity, and some frontier physics like dark matter, but none of those classes ever touched the standard model. So I'm looking for a book where I can introduce myself to it. I'd like a semi-technical introduction so I can gain some understanding. I don't want to read a book that tries to wow me with snappy one-liners about the origin of the universe like some netflix documentary. At the same time, I would probably get lost in a purely technical textbook. Are there any options in-between?

CR Drost
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BoddTaxter
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1 Answers1

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Griffiths’ Introduction to Elementary Particles

This is a standard book for introducing the topic to a student who has had several years (at the college level) of engineering-style mathematics (calculus, linear algebra, differential equations) but who is not very well acquainted yet with advanced quantum mechanics or group theory.

It starts with a general history of how the Standard Model came to be, continues into introducing Feynman diagrams, and then introduces relativistic kinematics and symmetry ideas. It proceeds at a relatively slow pace through these topics before finally starting with quantum mechanics at the Schrödinger equation level, going into the Hydrogen atom and how you need to reconsider the same physics for positronium and then how that applies to these two-quark mesons. So past familiarity is very useful but it is not totally taken for granted; and it is very much not a "start from the Lagrangian!" approach to quantum field theory.

CR Drost
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