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BookBrowse Reviews A Hole In Texas by Herman Wouk

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A Hole In Texas by Herman Wouk

A Hole In Texas

by Herman Wouk
  • BookBrowse Review:
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  • First Published:
  • Mar 1, 2004, 288 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jun 2005, 288 pages
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About This Book

Reviews

BookBrowse:


A rollicking Washington tale. Novel

Herman Wouk was born in 1915 and published his first novel in 1947.  Since then he has published at least 20 books including 'The Caine Mutiny' which won a Pulitzer in 1951 and 'The Winds of War' in 1971.  This is his first book in 10 years - and as one reviewer says, he writes like a man half his age.

Publishers Weekly says 'the plot is busy but secondary to Carpenter's banter and romantic escapades. Occasionally corny but also playful, thoughtful and passionate....will charm fans with its companionable warmth and wry humor.'

The hole in Texas referred to in the title is the real-life multiple billion dollar underground 50-mile Superconducting Super Collider (try saying that after a couple of drinks) which was built in Texas with the aim of finding the elusive Higgs boson subatomic particle.  In 1993, Congress, during the Clinton administration, pulled the plug on the project  - leaving a very large, very expensive hole and a few thousand physicists out of work.  

What is a boson?  According to Answers.com it is 'any of a class of particles, such as the photon, pion, or alpha particle, that have zero or integral spin and obey statistical rules permitting any number of identical particles to occupy the same quantum state.'  Clear as mud, as they say!

This review first ran in the June 1, 2005 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

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Beyond the Book:
  The Higgs Boson

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