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

Cliff (particle physics, Univ. of Cambridge) says that he was inspired by astronomer Carl Sagan to write this book, his first work of popular science. In the introduction, Cliff refers to an episode of the popular 1980 TV series Cosmos, where Sagan says, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Cliff aims to do just that, by breaking down the apple pie into its most basic ingredients to uncover the fundamental elements of matter and tell the story of the origin of the universe. To do so, he visits various scientific sites around the globe (including the Geneva particle physics lab CERN) and delves into the groundbreaking contributions of the scientists who helped attain our current understanding of the universe. He examines the major cosmological events that eventually formed the biological materials that make up an apple pie (including the big bang, the creation of stars, and the formation of heavy elements).