PHYSICS, PLAIN and SIMPLE

One chapter in the book is devoted specifically to women in science, and their stories are also woven into the broader historical narrative. Qian says this decision stems in part from his earlier work translating Who Cares About Particle Physics? Making Sense of the Higgs Boson, the Large Hadron Collider and CERN by Canadian physicist Pauline Gagnon.

"While translating that book," he explains, "I first learned that Einstein's first wife, Mileva Maric, made significant contributions to the theory of relativity. I felt it was important to share those stories with Chinese readers."

A career shaped

Qian's own journey into science was inspired by his upbringing. Both parents were nuclear research pioneers in China. Surrounded by physics books, he was drawn early on to the big questions about matter.

"Particle physics is about uncovering the smallest building blocks of matter," he says. "No one knows exactly what those are yet, but it's our curiosity about the unknown that keeps driving the research forward."

That curiosity, Qian emphasizes, often leads to unexpected breakthroughs. "This kind of research may not yet have immediate practical use in everyday life," he says, "but it sometimes can bring huge economic and technological benefits. When Madame Curie and my parents' generation studied nuclear energy, they had no idea what it could do. Yet it changed the world, from nuclear weapons to civilian power."