How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch

In Search of the Recipe for Our Universe, from the Origins of Atoms to the Big Bang

By: Harry Cliff

Narrated by: Harry Cliff

NAMED A BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF 2021 BY KIRKUS * An acclaimed experimental physicist at CERN takes you on an exhilarating search for the most basic building blocks of our universe, and the dramatic quest to unlock their cosmic origins. "A fascinating exploration of how we learned what matter really is, and the journey matter takes from the Big Bang, through exploding stars, ultimately to you and me." (Sean Carroll)

Carl Sagan once quipped, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” But finding the ultimate recipe for apple pie means answering some big questions: What is matter really made of? How did it escape annihilation in the fearsome heat of the Big Bang? And will we ever be able to understand the very first moments of our universe?

In How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch, Harry Cliff—a University of Cambridge particle physicist and researcher on the Large Hadron Collider—sets out in pursuit of answers. He ventures to the largest underground research facility in the world, deep beneath Italy's Gran Sasso mountains, where scientists gaze into the heart of the Sun using the most elusive of particles, the ghostly neutrino. He visits CERN in Switzerland to explore the "Antimatter Factory," where the stuff of science fiction is manufactured daily (and we're close to knowing whether it falls up). And he reveals what the latest data from the Large Hadron Collider may be telling us about the fundamental nature of matter.

Along the way, Cliff illuminates the history of physics, chemistry, and astronomy that brought us to our present understanding—and misunderstandings—of the world, while offering readers a front-row seat to one of the most dramatic intellectual journeys human beings have ever embarked on.

A transfixing deep dive into the origins of our world, How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch examines not just the makeup of our universe, but the awe-inspiring, improbable fact that it exists at all.

Fabulous. Easy to understand.

I have no physics background, and was able to understand the book clearly thanks to the authors explanations. I loved this book.

Excellent dictation and writing style

This is the best introductory science book I have ever encountered. It is as educative as any decent intro textbook on the subject, while maintaining a coherent storyline written well enough to grip my attention the whole way through.

Excellent.

One of the best explanations of this fascinating and complex topic. What a brilliant and inspiring young scientist Harry Cliff is.

One of the best science books I've ever listened to

Fantastic. A great way to understand review of the current state of particle physics. Includes the good and the bad. Highly recommended!

A Recipe for Fantastic fun!

A unique and accessible “vector” into the inner workings of the Universe and Multiverse! Cliff takes us on a journey into the limits of the known and unknown.