Michel Cassé

Europe recently installed a Large Hadron Collider at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), in Geneva, making the organization the world's foremost research centre for particle physics. Scientists hope that projected experiments will enable them to fied the hypothetical Higgs boson particle, which is missing from the Standard Model. LHC will also create some black holes so physicists can study them experimentally. A black hole exists when all forms of interaction between particles disappear, with the exception of gravity, causing all matter to collapse into itself. Stephen Hawking is the world's leading theorist on black holes. Some scientists think that black holes are not a cosmological void but instead wormholes leading to other universes. As was widely reported, two Americans filed a lawsuit against CERN, alleging that LHC may create a black hole that will swallow up the Earth. In his distinctive style, combining the scholarship and reliability of a leading scientist with the poetic brilliancy of a great writer, Michel Cass sets out to explain the physics of black holes. For him, the new goal of theoretical physics is to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. This beautifully written book explains the meaning of CERN's current experimentation with the world's largest machine. Cass book will spark interest in the universe, and his explanation of black holes will enable readers to understand the ideas of the famous British physicist Stephen Hawking. Michel Cass is an astrophysicist working at the Atomic Energy Commission. He is the author of Du vide et de la cr ation (1993), G n alogie de la mati re (2000) and Energie noire, mati re noire (2004).

What is the universe, which we regard as "ours" not only because we live in it but because it produced us? This book is in the form of a dialogue on cosmology between the astrophysicist Michel Cass and the philosopher Edgar Morin. It is a brilliant exercise, allying wide-ranging cultural erudition with scientific rigour. In their survey of revolutions in modern physics in the areas of emptiness and the invisible, chaos and order, time and history, the authors refer not only to scientists such as G del, Hubble and Prigogine, but also to ancient mythology (Genesis, Ameriedian religions), poetry (Shakespeare, Apollinaire) and philosophy (Heraclitus, Spinoza, Nietzsche). This book is a model of what an intimate, true meeting between science and philosophy should be. It is a profound work which revels in the joy of knowledge and restores us to the universe that is in all of us, as it celebrates the "anthropo-cosmos". Michel Cass is an astrophysicist at the Atomic Energy Commission and an associate research fellow at the Institut d? Astrophysique, in Paris. He is the author of numerous highly regarded works, including Du Vide et de la Cr ation and G n alogie de la Mati re. An internationally renowned writer and thinker known for his social and political commI'ment, Edgar Morin has held many prominent academic and research positions. His works ? particularly his magnum opus, La M thode have played a major role in contemporary thought.

Atoms originate in the stars. There is no real separation between the Earth and the sky, and matter forms one great whole, based on a series of nuclear reactions. Written in a lyrical, poetic style, this is a concise, clearly illustrated account of the birth of matter, aimed at the general reader. Michel Cass is an astrophysicist and researcher at the CEA and the Institut Astrophysique, in Paris. He is the author of Du Vide et de la Cr ation and La Petite Etoile.