Martin Gardner. The New Ambidextrous Universe (rev. ed. 1990) A revised version of what Gardner understood of physics in 1990. He acknowledges the book is outdated (evidence for the Higgs boson has since been found, for example), but it’s still a good overview of the Standard Model and its implications. The title refers to the arbitrariness of the terms Left and Right. Our usage is purely conventional. Without a face-to-face encounter, even a picture can’t define the convention, since one has to know it in order to reproduce the picture right (!) way round. That would severely limit attempts to communicate with aliens. Left-right happens to be a necessary category of symmetry, without which theories of physics don't make sense.
Gardner writes well and clearly, with a sly wit that sometimes breaks through his earnestness. One does need at least a high school knowledge of physics to grasp some of the explanations, but the central thesis is accessible to anyone.
Oh, about "almost indistinguishable": I don't understand it, but it seems to have something to do with C-parity. Clarifications and corrections desired.
Recommended ****
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