The first edition of this popular book on particle physics received universal acclaim for its clear and readable style. In this second edition the authors have brought the subject right up to date, including the recent discovery of the 'top quark' and the search for the Higgs boson. The book is the result of a collaboration between a world-famous elementary particle physicist and a physicist specializing in popular science writing. Together they have produced a fascinating account of the search for the fundamental building blocks of matter. Beginning with the experiments of Thomson and Rutherford at the turn of the century, the book chronicles how physicists revealed layer upon layer of structure within the atom, and culminates in a completely up-to-date description of current theories, which form the 'Standard Model' of particle physics. All that is required of the reader is a basic knowledge of a few key concepts, such as energy, mass and electric charge. The principles and concepts of the two great physics theories of the twentieth century - special relativity and quantum mechanics - are lucidly described, as are the basic concepts of atomic and subatomic physics. The book is written from the perspective of a physicist who played an active role in the development of the subject, and is spiced with interesting and first-hand stories and anecdotes relating to some of the leading figures in the field.From the recent discovery of the "top quark" to the search for the Higgs particle, the frontiers of particle physics beckon the imagination. Exploring in detail the full history of particle physics, Yuval Ne'eman and Yoram Kirsh explain in an engaging, nonmathematical style the principles of modern theories such as quantum mechanics and Einstein's relativity, and they brilliantly succeed in conveying to the reader the excitement that accompanied the original discoveries. The book is spiced with amusing stories on how great discoveries were made, and Ne'eman, who took an active role in some of the historical advances in particle physics, gives his personal point of view. New to this edition are sections on the discovery of the top quark; the rise and fall of the supercollider project; the detection of the Zo particle in e+e- colliders; and the use of the width of the Zo to determine the number of "generations" of quarks and leptons. The Particle Hunters will interest anyone who wants to keep pace with the progress of human knowledge. Yuval Ne'eman discovered the basic symmetry of the subatomic particles of matter, leading him to their classification, to the prediction of new particles, and to his identification (in 1962) of a new layer in the structure of matter ("quarks"). Yoram Kirsh was awarded the Aharon Katzir Prize for popular science writing in 1975.