As we understand the world better, the idea that it has a transcendent purpose seems increasingly untenable.

Quantum reality is a wave function; classical positions and velocities are merely what we are able to observe when we probe that wave function.

So neurons talk to each other by squirting electrically charged molecules from the axon of one to a dendrite on another.

That’s how science works. We don’t “prove” results like we can in mathematics or logic; we simply add to their plausibility by accumulating more and more evidence.

If an ontology predicts almost nothing it ends up explaining almost nothing, and there’s no reason to believe it.

Human beings are not nearly as coolly rational as we like to think we are. Having set up comfortable planets of belief, we become resistant to altering them, and develop cognitive biases that prevent us from seeing the world with perfect clarity. We aspire to be perfect Bayesian abductors, impartially reasoning to the best explanation – but most often we take new data and squeeze it to fit with our preconceptions.

But Waldegrave didn’t simply give up; he challenged the scientists to provide him with an understandable explanation of the role of the Higgs boson, one that would fit on a single piece of paper. He offered a bottle of vintage champagne to whoever came up with the best explanation. Miller and four colleagues managed to cook up an engaging metaphor that was deemed suitable by the science minister. All five got bottles of champagne, and of course the United Kingdom supported the LHC.

Our goal over the next few chapters is to address the origin of complex structures – including, but not limited to, living creatures – in the context of the big picture. The universe is a set of quantum fields obeying equations that don’t even distinguish between past and future, much less embody any long-term goals. How in the world did something as organized as a human being ever come to be?

Lederman is also a charismatic personality, famous among his colleagues for his humor and storytelling ability. One of his favorite anecdotes relates the time when, as a graduate student, he arranged to bump into Albert Einstein while walking the grounds at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. The great man listened patiently as the eager youngster explained the particle-physics research he was doing at Columbia, and then said with a smile, “That is not interesting.

At heart, science is the quest for awesome – the literal awe that you feel when you understand something profound for the first time. It’s a feeling we are all born with, although it often gets lost as we grow up and more mundane concerns take over our lives.