The Particles for iOS

Whether you have read every book ever written by Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Feynman, or you can't tell the difference between a proton and an electron, The Particles is an incredible app. Combining savvy design with riveting information about the nature of particle physics, The Particles is one part encyclopedia entry, one part interactive tour, and one part NOVA science hour.

The app is very much an educational tool. When you open it, you'll be presented with a menu that introduces you to particle physics, a glossary of all the terms used in the app, and an overview of the data used in the app. The main menu showcases all five types of particles - leptons, baryons, mesons, bosons, and quarks. Tap on any of the five quadrants and it will spin. Tap it again and you are given a menu for that particle including the different types that we currently know about. So if you've been reading about the Higgs Boson particle and want to know exactly what that means, tap the Boson quadrant and then the "Higgs Boson" menu option to read what it is, see the illustrations of the supercollider events, and compare it to other bosons.

The Particles is definitely an app for people with a desire to learn more about particle physics and mathematics; but even for those that may not know much about the sciences, it is presented in such a way that it is extremely accessible, fun to use, and attractive to look at. This is a very well-crafted app, filled with useful information, plenty of outside references, and none of the dense scientific jargon that tends to turn people off from science in general. A must download for anyone with an interest in particle- or astrophysics.