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 Customer Reviews
Excellent, engaging and fascinating, 27 Dec 2008
Quantum is the unfinished story of the development of quantum mechanics. Unfinished? Yes, because the question which lies at the centre of the book is not yet resolved.
The story starts in late Victorian times when classic physics seems close to completion, to being able to explain the world fully. There seem to be just a few loose ends to be tied up. However, it is those few loose ends inside the atom, explaining the nature of the electron, being able to account for light behaving both like a particle and a wave etc which lead to the unravelling (at the atomic level) of previous world views.
Through the lives of Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, De Broglie and others we see how diferent strands of quantum theory were hotly contested and how it developed through analysis and synthesis.
One of the most exciting things about the book to me was the rigour and power of true scientific method. Quantum physics, despite being in some ways mind blowingly ethereal is subject to the most searching challenge and detailed research. We see two of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Einstein and Bohr sitting on opposite sides of the dispute, deploying their most powerful destructive intellectual weapons in order to test the veracity of each others ideas. If ever you doudt bthe superiority of genuine science over pseudo Science (are you listening Charles Windsor), read this book.
At the centre of the dispute is the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum mechanics, at the heart of which is the assertion that reality is not indepedent of measurement. (it would take too long to explain more, but Schrodingers famous cat is involved). Through the book we see Bohr besting Einstein, but one feels that the author is sympathetic towards Einstein and there is a sense of relief at the end of the book that the door remains open for the father of relativity.
Also fascinating is that roughly half of the book is about the major advances in the development of quantum theory in the first three decades of the 20th Century and thereafter debate switched to the interpretation, in a nutshell, is it reality or just a convenient model describing the effect of an underlying reality.
This is no dry science book however, one gets to know the people involved and the story has as its setting the major events of 20th Century history, the first world war, the rise of the nazis, the development of the atomic bomb, and the cold war.
Kumar is a clear and engaging writer, and my only two criticims would be firstly that in his efforts to be comprehensoible he maybe keeps too far away from the hard science at times. Secondly the odd summarising passage, showing briefly what the current state of play was would be helpful.
Overall, definitely recommended, it's a book for everyone, not just the scientifically minded.
The entanglement of classical and quantum realities, 11 Dec 2008
The great Einstein-Bohr debate about physical reality is interesting not only to physicists, but also to great many readers interested in understanding the nature. This discussion between Bohr and Einstein over the interpretation of quantum theory began in 1927 at the fifth Solvay Conference. The debate over the ability of quantum theory to describe nature was fueled by many leading physicists of the time, some of whom directly contributed to the development of quantum physics, but later found themselves arguing against the theory they helped to create. Notable examples include Erwin Schrodinger, Paul Dirac, and Max Planck; the latter two did not actively participate in challenging the quantum reality. Bohr and Einstein spent many years intensely debating the nature of reality, and their discussions are known for very famous Einstein's comments such as; "God does not play dice,' or "God is slick, but he ain't mean," and Bohr's response was "don't bring God into this (discussion of quantum physics)." Bohr argued vigorously against both deterministic and realistic world, but Einstein was equally adamant to defend these two physical and philosophical concepts. Deterministic philosophy was spurred by Newtonian mechanics; if we know a system and its physical properties (size, color, or position) at one point in time, then at some point in future we can predict the system based on these physical properties. Bohr argued that complete knowledge of the present can result only in a description of what the future most probably will be like, but there is no such thing as certainty in quantum world. This thought is mystified by what is commonly called Copenhagen interpretation, and its strong proponents were Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Born. Classical reality envisioned by Einstein was supported to a certain level by Schrödinger. Recent historical research shows that Paul Dirac had his own doubts about Copenhagen school of thought (1), and Max Planck, the founding father of quantum physics, lived until 1947 did not participate directly in Einstein-Bohr debate because of his own insecurities about quantum reality. When experimental test for Bell's inequality was conducted by Alain Aspect and others, many thought that Einstein was definitely wrong, but recent advances say, not so fast. Physicist Roger Penrose and many others believe that quantum physics is an incomplete theory (2). Few weeks ago when Large Hadron Collider (LHC) conducted test runs, Stephen Hawking expressed pessimism of finding Higgs Boson in LHC experiments by stating that "I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of 100 dollars that we won't find the Higgs." In a poll conducted in 1999 at Cambridge University, 55% of physicists polled for none of the existing quantum interpretations are right. This shows that not everything is settled in quantum physics.
History of quantum physics is the best example to understand how scientists work. Their collective efforts to understand the universe we live in through publications, conferences, discussions correspondence and collaborative efforts are essential to scientific advancement. The author describes these things well in the book, but he falls short in certain areas; his current work uses previously published works of Max Jammer (3), Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg (4) as his few sources of information, but he could have researched a little more by talking to people who were directly associated with Einstein or Bohr. In a recent book by Louisa Gilder (5), after interviewing a colleague of Boris Podolsky, she reported that Rosen or Podolsky never asked Einstein for his permission when they published the classic Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paper, 'Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete." It is also stated elsewhere that Einstein never thought this was going to be a paper; the ideas came out during informal discussions (6). The author discusses the results of crucial experiments such as tests of Bell's theorem, and other work that may have lead to confusions or mistakes.
Many who are familiar with the history of quantum physics think that even though Einstein is unquestionably the best scientist mankind has ever seen but they also believe that he was grumpy old man who did not appreciate new and novel ideas in physics. This is certainly not true according to physicists who knew him. He helped Max Planck in the development of early ideas such as quantized energy levels in quantum physics. Einstein was not against new ideas such as the probabilistic or statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, but the denial of an independent reality bothered him immensely. This lead to another famous quote from Einstein: "I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." The author resurrects these ideals of Einstein hastily when he discusses experimental tests of Bell's theorem. He concludes that Einstein's doubts about the completeness of quantum mechanics are vindicated.
1. Alisa Bokulich, Paul Dirac and the Einstein-Bohr Debate. Perspectives on Science 2008, vol. 16, no. 1, pages 103-114.
2. Spirituality and the Nature of Reality - A discussion between Roger Penrose and T. D. Singh, Published by Bhaktivedanta Institute, 2007 (ISBN: 8190136976)
3. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics
4. The Conceptual Completion and the Extensions of Quantum Mechanics 1932-1941: Epilogue, Aspects of the Further Development of Quantum Theory 1942-1999: ... (Historical Development of Quantum Theory)
5. The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn
6. Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries Tag: Author of in Search of Schrod. Cat
7. Einstein, Bohr and the Quantum Dilemma: From Quantum Theory to Quantum Information
Bringing quantum theory to life, 01 Dec 2008
This is a quite marvellous book. There must be loads of people, like me, that are daunted by the complexity of quantum theory, and yet feel like it's something they ought to try and get their heads round.
There have been no end of books that have given a tantalising snapshot of what it means for the layman, but never so comprehensively done. Manjit Kumar does a great job of weaving together the science, the history and the human drama of it all, to create a book that, by the standards of most science books, can only be described as a page turner.
At the heart of the book is the decades long rivalry between Einstein and Bohr, and although that rivalry provides a central structure, there is generous space for the contribution and role of all the other main players in the development of quantum theory through the first part of the twentieth century, starting with Max Planck's discovery of the quantum.
It's hard to recommend this book too highly. Anyone who has read and enjoyed popular science books over the years is almost sure to find that Quantum fills many gaps in their knowledge and links together the historical narrative in a fresh and vivid way.
The personal touch, 11 Nov 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book!
Excellent, interesting, story and subject.
I thought Kumar put it across in a very entertaining way, I did not get all of the minutia of the physics but that did not matter, I especially
enjoyed the suspense and his sense of humour. I also enjoyed the way
the story wove characters and events together, all the way through I was kept interested, he knows how to tell a story.
I got alot out of the information in the book; it filled in gaps for me in my knowledge about the subject as well as providing a really interesting back drop to the stuff I'd done at school. (I liked science till I got to the 6th Form.) The book worked on many different levels, as a history I became aware that there were quite often unintended results or consequences from experiments or ideas, some times others taking up
something someone else had accidently stumbled across and looking at it in a new way, I liked that, I found it thought provoking.
This gave me an interesting insight in to the whole unfolding
understanding of the science as it happened in time, this was one of the main areas focused on. Another aspect, the personalities
and how they interacted what they got up to I enjoyed hearing about
their interests and how they lived. 'Painting a picture' of the
scientists as people really worked for me.
Bookbag.co.uk, 07 Nov 2008
Quantum is a fascinating, powerful and brilliantly written book that shows one of the most important theories of modern science in the making and discusses its implications for our ideas about the fundamental nature of the world and human knowledge, while presenting intimate and insightful portraits of people who made the science. Highly recommended.
Magda Healey writing for the Bookbag.co.uk
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, engaging and fascinating, 27 Dec 2008
Quantum is the unfinished story of the development of quantum mechanics. Unfinished? Yes, because the question which lies at the centre of the book is not yet resolved.
The story starts in late Victorian times when classic physics seems close to completion, to being able to explain the world fully. There seem to be just a few loose ends to be tied up. However, it is those few loose ends inside the atom, explaining the nature of the electron, being able to account for light behaving both like a particle and a wave etc which lead to the unravelling (at the atomic level) of previous world views.
Through the lives of Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, De Broglie and others we see how diferent strands of quantum theory were hotly contested and how it developed through analysis and synthesis.
One of the most exciting things about the book to me was the rigour and power of true scientific method. Quantum physics, despite being in some ways mind blowingly ethereal is subject to the most searching challenge and detailed research. We see two of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Einstein and Bohr sitting on opposite sides of the dispute, deploying their most powerful destructive intellectual weapons in order to test the veracity of each others ideas. If ever you doudt bthe superiority of genuine science over pseudo Science (are you listening Charles Windsor), read this book.
At the centre of the dispute is the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum mechanics, at the heart of which is the assertion that reality is not indepedent of measurement. (it would take too long to explain more, but Schrodingers famous cat is involved). Through the book we see Bohr besting Einstein, but one feels that the author is sympathetic towards Einstein and there is a sense of relief at the end of the book that the door remains open for the father of relativity.
Also fascinating is that roughly half of the book is about the major advances in the development of quantum theory in the first three decades of the 20th Century and thereafter debate switched to the interpretation, in a nutshell, is it reality or just a convenient model describing the effect of an underlying reality.
This is no dry science book however, one gets to know the people involved and the story has as its setting the major events of 20th Century history, the first world war, the rise of the nazis, the development of the atomic bomb, and the cold war.
Kumar is a clear and engaging writer, and my only two criticims would be firstly that in his efforts to be comprehensoible he maybe keeps too far away from the hard science at times. Secondly the odd summarising passage, showing briefly what the current state of play was would be helpful.
Overall, definitely recommended, it's a book for everyone, not just the scientifically minded.
The entanglement of classical and quantum realities, 11 Dec 2008
The great Einstein-Bohr debate about physical reality is interesting not only to physicists, but also to great many readers interested in understanding the nature. This discussion between Bohr and Einstein over the interpretation of quantum theory began in 1927 at the fifth Solvay Conference. The debate over the ability of quantum theory to describe nature was fueled by many leading physicists of the time, some of whom directly contributed to the development of quantum physics, but later found themselves arguing against the theory they helped to create. Notable examples include Erwin Schrodinger, Paul Dirac, and Max Planck; the latter two did not actively participate in challenging the quantum reality. Bohr and Einstein spent many years intensely debating the nature of reality, and their discussions are known for very famous Einstein's comments such as; "God does not play dice,' or "God is slick, but he ain't mean," and Bohr's response was "don't bring God into this (discussion of quantum physics)." Bohr argued vigorously against both deterministic and realistic world, but Einstein was equally adamant to defend these two physical and philosophical concepts. Deterministic philosophy was spurred by Newtonian mechanics; if we know a system and its physical properties (size, color, or position) at one point in time, then at some point in future we can predict the system based on these physical properties. Bohr argued that complete knowledge of the present can result only in a description of what the future most probably will be like, but there is no such thing as certainty in quantum world. This thought is mystified by what is commonly called Copenhagen interpretation, and its strong proponents were Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Born. Classical reality envisioned by Einstein was supported to a certain level by Schrödinger. Recent historical research shows that Paul Dirac had his own doubts about Copenhagen school of thought (1), and Max Planck, the founding father of quantum physics, lived until 1947 did not participate directly in Einstein-Bohr debate because of his own insecurities about quantum reality. When experimental test for Bell's inequality was conducted by Alain Aspect and others, many thought that Einstein was definitely wrong, but recent advances say, not so fast. Physicist Roger Penrose and many others believe that quantum physics is an incomplete theory (2). Few weeks ago when Large Hadron Collider (LHC) conducted test runs, Stephen Hawking expressed pessimism of finding Higgs Boson in LHC experiments by stating that "I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of 100 dollars that we won't find the Higgs." In a poll conducted in 1999 at Cambridge University, 55% of physicists polled for none of the existing quantum interpretations are right. This shows that not everything is settled in quantum physics.
History of quantum physics is the best example to understand how scientists work. Their collective efforts to understand the universe we live in through publications, conferences, discussions correspondence and collaborative efforts are essential to scientific advancement. The author describes these things well in the book, but he falls short in certain areas; his current work uses previously published works of Max Jammer (3), Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg (4) as his few sources of information, but he could have researched a little more by talking to people who were directly associated with Einstein or Bohr. In a recent book by Louisa Gilder (5), after interviewing a colleague of Boris Podolsky, she reported that Rosen or Podolsky never asked Einstein for his permission when they published the classic Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paper, 'Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete." It is also stated elsewhere that Einstein never thought this was going to be a paper; the ideas came out during informal discussions (6). The author discusses the results of crucial experiments such as tests of Bell's theorem, and other work that may have lead to confusions or mistakes.
Many who are familiar with the history of quantum physics think that even though Einstein is unquestionably the best scientist mankind has ever seen but they also believe that he was grumpy old man who did not appreciate new and novel ideas in physics. This is certainly not true according to physicists who knew him. He helped Max Planck in the development of early ideas such as quantized energy levels in quantum physics. Einstein was not against new ideas such as the probabilistic or statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, but the denial of an independent reality bothered him immensely. This lead to another famous quote from Einstein: "I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." The author resurrects these ideals of Einstein hastily when he discusses experimental tests of Bell's theorem. He concludes that Einstein's doubts about the completeness of quantum mechanics are vindicated.
1. Alisa Bokulich, Paul Dirac and the Einstein-Bohr Debate. Perspectives on Science 2008, vol. 16, no. 1, pages 103-114.
2. Spirituality and the Nature of Reality - A discussion between Roger Penrose and T. D. Singh, Published by Bhaktivedanta Institute, 2007 (ISBN: 8190136976)
3. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics
4. The Conceptual Completion and the Extensions of Quantum Mechanics 1932-1941: Epilogue, Aspects of the Further Development of Quantum Theory 1942-1999: ... (Historical Development of Quantum Theory)
5. The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn
6. Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries Tag: Author of in Search of Schrod. Cat
7. Einstein, Bohr and the Quantum Dilemma: From Quantum Theory to Quantum Information
Bringing quantum theory to life, 01 Dec 2008
This is a quite marvellous book. There must be loads of people, like me, that are daunted by the complexity of quantum theory, and yet feel like it's something they ought to try and get their heads round.
There have been no end of books that have given a tantalising snapshot of what it means for the layman, but never so comprehensively done. Manjit Kumar does a great job of weaving together the science, the history and the human drama of it all, to create a book that, by the standards of most science books, can only be described as a page turner.
At the heart of the book is the decades long rivalry between Einstein and Bohr, and although that rivalry provides a central structure, there is generous space for the contribution and role of all the other main players in the development of quantum theory through the first part of the twentieth century, starting with Max Planck's discovery of the quantum.
It's hard to recommend this book too highly. Anyone who has read and enjoyed popular science books over the years is almost sure to find that Quantum fills many gaps in their knowledge and links together the historical narrative in a fresh and vivid way.
The personal touch, 11 Nov 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book!
Excellent, interesting, story and subject.
I thought Kumar put it across in a very entertaining way, I did not get all of the minutia of the physics but that did not matter, I especially
enjoyed the suspense and his sense of humour. I also enjoyed the way
the story wove characters and events together, all the way through I was kept interested, he knows how to tell a story.
I got alot out of the information in the book; it filled in gaps for me in my knowledge about the subject as well as providing a really interesting back drop to the stuff I'd done at school. (I liked science till I got to the 6th Form.) The book worked on many different levels, as a history I became aware that there were quite often unintended results or consequences from experiments or ideas, some times others taking up
something someone else had accidently stumbled across and looking at it in a new way, I liked that, I found it thought provoking.
This gave me an interesting insight in to the whole unfolding
understanding of the science as it happened in time, this was one of the main areas focused on. Another aspect, the personalities
and how they interacted what they got up to I enjoyed hearing about
their interests and how they lived. 'Painting a picture' of the
scientists as people really worked for me.
Bookbag.co.uk, 07 Nov 2008
Quantum is a fascinating, powerful and brilliantly written book that shows one of the most important theories of modern science in the making and discusses its implications for our ideas about the fundamental nature of the world and human knowledge, while presenting intimate and insightful portraits of people who made the science. Highly recommended.
Magda Healey writing for the Bookbag.co.uk
A brief but painless introduction, 28 Dec 2008
I bought this book at a book signing event in Waterstones whilst waiting around for Ben Goldacre to show up to sign his book Bad Science. Marcus Chown was also in attendance and I chatted a while with him about this book amongst other things.
I have read several books on physics and quantum theory by authors such as Brian Green, John Gribbin and Stephen Hawking and was familiar with quantum theory; familiar in the sense that I have a vague understanding of the topic and find it thoroughly interesting but decidedly bonkers.
Given my existing "knowledge", I wasn't sure if this book would be for me, but I bought it anyway, and now, having found a few spare hours dotted through the Christmas holiday, I am very glad indeed that I did.
The book is split into two parts; i) Small Things and ii) Big Things. Small things discusses the strange world of quantum theory, wave-particle duality, interference, superposition, quantum tunnelling and the like, whilst part two focusses, in general, on Einstein's theories of relativity.
Given the book's title, I was surprised at the amount of space given over to relativity. (That little bit of prior "knowledge" meant I figured the author intended to bring us full circle and explain why General/Special relativity break down when describing the very small in black holes or at the Big Bang - which he does.) However, the Big stuff sits nicely alongside the Small and in the final chapter prepares readers for the even stranger world that string theorists inhabit.
The book progresses at an nice, even pace with plenty of examples and illustrations, which, given the topic, end up being a little contrived and exaggerated. But this is not a problem; what is being discussed is just as crazy as anything the author dreams up to help illustrate the science!
For me, the individual sections were a little brief, but for the reader that is coming fresh to the topic I doubt this will be the case. Instead, "Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You" is a thoroughly interesting introduction to this fascinating area of science.
And, true to his word, the book didn't hurt one little bit.
Big Banger, 10 Dec 2008
At last I've got it - thanks to Chown's excellent and concise book. Happily, he realises most readers won't have a thorough grounding in math, and introduces the universe, quantum theory and relativity, with characteristic verve. His highly original metaphors and use of analogy ensure the layperson moves effortlessly through the text, a real page-turner. I've given copies to my nephews who are studying physics at GCSE level, as a counter to the usual dry texts they find a chore. We've all found this book far more accessible than other `popularised' books and superficial whizz bang TV progs on the subject that merely left us bewildered. Given the current level of science illiteracy, especially around these areas, this excellent introduction should improve our grasp of some of the major developments in physics over the last century, including the attempt to recreate the Big Bang a few weeks ago. There is a useful glossary and some good suggestions for further reading.
A little fact-checking doesn't hurt either, 09 Dec 2008
If the author can't get the simple fact that physicist/chemist Robert Boyle was Irish and not, as he says in his book, English is there any reason to suppose we can rely on the rest of the content?
But there you go, that's Quantum - it's the small things that get you in the end.
Quantum Theory CAN hurt you - but you're OK in Mr Chown's hands., 23 Nov 2008
I've come across quantum mechanics before a couple of times, and it has always been a big puzzle. However, since it seems to keep coming up all the time, I've always wished I knew more - and having read this book I do! This book is very user-friendly. It tells you about quantum mechanics in ways anyone can understand and makes it interesting and appealing. Quantum Mechanics doesn't seem like anything else - not like 'old' physics at all. It is weird and astonishing, for instance time is variable, light bends, photons can be in two places, and sometimes one photon can 'tell' what a partner is doing. I don't think I shall ever really understand quantum mechanics but through reading this book I know it won't hurt me, and I feel happy with what I do know...and when I see TV programmes like Einstein and Eddington I know what they're talking about which makes me feel extremely clever. I now feel brave enough to try Richard Feynman. Quantum Theory is an excellent read and I highly recommend it.
Very Dissapointed , 10 Nov 2008
I was very dissapointed with this book but it serves me right as I bought it based on the hype. I cringed with just about every hack joke or wittism he tried. If you think you'll learn something even mildly serious about QM or are seeking painless enlightenment, this book is pointless even within its genre - read Feynmans QED and Six not so Easy Peaces (which are, really, once explained by Feynman.)These two simple books (with just a bit more of well worthwhile effort) you'll find will round rings around Chown. If you want enlightenment on Cosmology go for Asimov. If you know something about QM already you'll spot and cringe at the often mixed-up attemps to explain many things. The cartoon style cover does this book good justice though.
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, engaging and fascinating, 27 Dec 2008
Quantum is the unfinished story of the development of quantum mechanics. Unfinished? Yes, because the question which lies at the centre of the book is not yet resolved.
The story starts in late Victorian times when classic physics seems close to completion, to being able to explain the world fully. There seem to be just a few loose ends to be tied up. However, it is those few loose ends inside the atom, explaining the nature of the electron, being able to account for light behaving both like a particle and a wave etc which lead to the unravelling (at the atomic level) of previous world views.
Through the lives of Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, De Broglie and others we see how diferent strands of quantum theory were hotly contested and how it developed through analysis and synthesis.
One of the most exciting things about the book to me was the rigour and power of true scientific method. Quantum physics, despite being in some ways mind blowingly ethereal is subject to the most searching challenge and detailed research. We see two of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Einstein and Bohr sitting on opposite sides of the dispute, deploying their most powerful destructive intellectual weapons in order to test the veracity of each others ideas. If ever you doudt bthe superiority of genuine science over pseudo Science (are you listening Charles Windsor), read this book.
At the centre of the dispute is the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum mechanics, at the heart of which is the assertion that reality is not indepedent of measurement. (it would take too long to explain more, but Schrodingers famous cat is involved). Through the book we see Bohr besting Einstein, but one feels that the author is sympathetic towards Einstein and there is a sense of relief at the end of the book that the door remains open for the father of relativity.
Also fascinating is that roughly half of the book is about the major advances in the development of quantum theory in the first three decades of the 20th Century and thereafter debate switched to the interpretation, in a nutshell, is it reality or just a convenient model describing the effect of an underlying reality.
This is no dry science book however, one gets to know the people involved and the story has as its setting the major events of 20th Century history, the first world war, the rise of the nazis, the development of the atomic bomb, and the cold war.
Kumar is a clear and engaging writer, and my only two criticims would be firstly that in his efforts to be comprehensoible he maybe keeps too far away from the hard science at times. Secondly the odd summarising passage, showing briefly what the current state of play was would be helpful.
Overall, definitely recommended, it's a book for everyone, not just the scientifically minded.
The entanglement of classical and quantum realities, 11 Dec 2008
The great Einstein-Bohr debate about physical reality is interesting not only to physicists, but also to great many readers interested in understanding the nature. This discussion between Bohr and Einstein over the interpretation of quantum theory began in 1927 at the fifth Solvay Conference. The debate over the ability of quantum theory to describe nature was fueled by many leading physicists of the time, some of whom directly contributed to the development of quantum physics, but later found themselves arguing against the theory they helped to create. Notable examples include Erwin Schrodinger, Paul Dirac, and Max Planck; the latter two did not actively participate in challenging the quantum reality. Bohr and Einstein spent many years intensely debating the nature of reality, and their discussions are known for very famous Einstein's comments such as; "God does not play dice,' or "God is slick, but he ain't mean," and Bohr's response was "don't bring God into this (discussion of quantum physics)." Bohr argued vigorously against both deterministic and realistic world, but Einstein was equally adamant to defend these two physical and philosophical concepts. Deterministic philosophy was spurred by Newtonian mechanics; if we know a system and its physical properties (size, color, or position) at one point in time, then at some point in future we can predict the system based on these physical properties. Bohr argued that complete knowledge of the present can result only in a description of what the future most probably will be like, but there is no such thing as certainty in quantum world. This thought is mystified by what is commonly called Copenhagen interpretation, and its strong proponents were Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Born. Classical reality envisioned by Einstein was supported to a certain level by Schrödinger. Recent historical research shows that Paul Dirac had his own doubts about Copenhagen school of thought (1), and Max Planck, the founding father of quantum physics, lived until 1947 did not participate directly in Einstein-Bohr debate because of his own insecurities about quantum reality. When experimental test for Bell's inequality was conducted by Alain Aspect and others, many thought that Einstein was definitely wrong, but recent advances say, not so fast. Physicist Roger Penrose and many others believe that quantum physics is an incomplete theory (2). Few weeks ago when Large Hadron Collider (LHC) conducted test runs, Stephen Hawking expressed pessimism of finding Higgs Boson in LHC experiments by stating that "I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of 100 dollars that we won't find the Higgs." In a poll conducted in 1999 at Cambridge University, 55% of physicists polled for none of the existing quantum interpretations are right. This shows that not everything is settled in quantum physics.
History of quantum physics is the best example to understand how scientists work. Their collective efforts to understand the universe we live in through publications, conferences, discussions correspondence and collaborative efforts are essential to scientific advancement. The author describes these things well in the book, but he falls short in certain areas; his current work uses previously published works of Max Jammer (3), Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg (4) as his few sources of information, but he could have researched a little more by talking to people who were directly associated with Einstein or Bohr. In a recent book by Louisa Gilder (5), after interviewing a colleague of Boris Podolsky, she reported that Rosen or Podolsky never asked Einstein for his permission when they published the classic Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paper, 'Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete." It is also stated elsewhere that Einstein never thought this was going to be a paper; the ideas came out during informal discussions (6). The author discusses the results of crucial experiments such as tests of Bell's theorem, and other work that may have lead to confusions or mistakes.
Many who are familiar with the history of quantum physics think that even though Einstein is unquestionably the best scientist mankind has ever seen but they also believe that he was grumpy old man who did not appreciate new and novel ideas in physics. This is certainly not true according to physicists who knew him. He helped Max Planck in the development of early ideas such as quantized energy levels in quantum physics. Einstein was not against new ideas such as the probabilistic or statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, but the denial of an independent reality bothered him immensely. This lead to another famous quote from Einstein: "I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." The author resurrects these ideals of Einstein hastily when he discusses experimental tests of Bell's theorem. He concludes that Einstein's doubts about the completeness of quantum mechanics are vindicated.
1. Alisa Bokulich, Paul Dirac and the Einstein-Bohr Debate. Perspectives on Science 2008, vol. 16, no. 1, pages 103-114.
2. Spirituality and the Nature of Reality - A discussion between Roger Penrose and T. D. Singh, Published by Bhaktivedanta Institute, 2007 (ISBN: 8190136976)
3. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics
4. The Conceptual Completion and the Extensions of Quantum Mechanics 1932-1941: Epilogue, Aspects of the Further Development of Quantum Theory 1942-1999: ... (Historical Development of Quantum Theory)
5. The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn
6. Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries Tag: Author of in Search of Schrod. Cat
7. Einstein, Bohr and the Quantum Dilemma: From Quantum Theory to Quantum Information
Bringing quantum theory to life, 01 Dec 2008
This is a quite marvellous book. There must be loads of people, like me, that are daunted by the complexity of quantum theory, and yet feel like it's something they ought to try and get their heads round.
There have been no end of books that have given a tantalising snapshot of what it means for the layman, but never so comprehensively done. Manjit Kumar does a great job of weaving together the science, the history and the human drama of it all, to create a book that, by the standards of most science books, can only be described as a page turner.
At the heart of the book is the decades long rivalry between Einstein and Bohr, and although that rivalry provides a central structure, there is generous space for the contribution and role of all the other main players in the development of quantum theory through the first part of the twentieth century, starting with Max Planck's discovery of the quantum.
It's hard to recommend this book too highly. Anyone who has read and enjoyed popular science books over the years is almost sure to find that Quantum fills many gaps in their knowledge and links together the historical narrative in a fresh and vivid way.
The personal touch, 11 Nov 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book!
Excellent, interesting, story and subject.
I thought Kumar put it across in a very entertaining way, I did not get all of the minutia of the physics but that did not matter, I especially
enjoyed the suspense and his sense of humour. I also enjoyed the way
the story wove characters and events together, all the way through I was kept interested, he knows how to tell a story.
I got alot out of the information in the book; it filled in gaps for me in my knowledge about the subject as well as providing a really interesting back drop to the stuff I'd done at school. (I liked science till I got to the 6th Form.) The book worked on many different levels, as a history I became aware that there were quite often unintended results or consequences from experiments or ideas, some times others taking up
something someone else had accidently stumbled across and looking at it in a new way, I liked that, I found it thought provoking.
This gave me an interesting insight in to the whole unfolding
understanding of the science as it happened in time, this was one of the main areas focused on. Another aspect, the personalities
and how they interacted what they got up to I enjoyed hearing about
their interests and how they lived. 'Painting a picture' of the
scientists as people really worked for me.
Bookbag.co.uk, 07 Nov 2008
Quantum is a fascinating, powerful and brilliantly written book that shows one of the most important theories of modern science in the making and discusses its implications for our ideas about the fundamental nature of the world and human knowledge, while presenting intimate and insightful portraits of people who made the science. Highly recommended.
Magda Healey writing for the Bookbag.co.uk
A brief but painless introduction, 28 Dec 2008
I bought this book at a book signing event in Waterstones whilst waiting around for Ben Goldacre to show up to sign his book Bad Science. Marcus Chown was also in attendance and I chatted a while with him about this book amongst other things.
I have read several books on physics and quantum theory by authors such as Brian Green, John Gribbin and Stephen Hawking and was familiar with quantum theory; familiar in the sense that I have a vague understanding of the topic and find it thoroughly interesting but decidedly bonkers.
Given my existing "knowledge", I wasn't sure if this book would be for me, but I bought it anyway, and now, having found a few spare hours dotted through the Christmas holiday, I am very glad indeed that I did.
The book is split into two parts; i) Small Things and ii) Big Things. Small things discusses the strange world of quantum theory, wave-particle duality, interference, superposition, quantum tunnelling and the like, whilst part two focusses, in general, on Einstein's theories of relativity.
Given the book's title, I was surprised at the amount of space given over to relativity. (That little bit of prior "knowledge" meant I figured the author intended to bring us full circle and explain why General/Special relativity break down when describing the very small in black holes or at the Big Bang - which he does.) However, the Big stuff sits nicely alongside the Small and in the final chapter prepares readers for the even stranger world that string theorists inhabit.
The book progresses at an nice, even pace with plenty of examples and illustrations, which, given the topic, end up being a little contrived and exaggerated. But this is not a problem; what is being discussed is just as crazy as anything the author dreams up to help illustrate the science!
For me, the individual sections were a little brief, but for the reader that is coming fresh to the topic I doubt this will be the case. Instead, "Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You" is a thoroughly interesting introduction to this fascinating area of science.
And, true to his word, the book didn't hurt one little bit.
Big Banger, 10 Dec 2008
At last I've got it - thanks to Chown's excellent and concise book. Happily, he realises most readers won't have a thorough grounding in math, and introduces the universe, quantum theory and relativity, with characteristic verve. His highly original metaphors and use of analogy ensure the layperson moves effortlessly through the text, a real page-turner. I've given copies to my nephews who are studying physics at GCSE level, as a counter to the usual dry texts they find a chore. We've all found this book far more accessible than other `popularised' books and superficial whizz bang TV progs on the subject that merely left us bewildered. Given the current level of science illiteracy, especially around these areas, this excellent introduction should improve our grasp of some of the major developments in physics over the last century, including the attempt to recreate the Big Bang a few weeks ago. There is a useful glossary and some good suggestions for further reading.
A little fact-checking doesn't hurt either, 09 Dec 2008
If the author can't get the simple fact that physicist/chemist Robert Boyle was Irish and not, as he says in his book, English is there any reason to suppose we can rely on the rest of the content?
But there you go, that's Quantum - it's the small things that get you in the end.
Quantum Theory CAN hurt you - but you're OK in Mr Chown's hands., 23 Nov 2008
I've come across quantum mechanics before a couple of times, and it has always been a big puzzle. However, since it seems to keep coming up all the time, I've always wished I knew more - and having read this book I do! This book is very user-friendly. It tells you about quantum mechanics in ways anyone can understand and makes it interesting and appealing. Quantum Mechanics doesn't seem like anything else - not like 'old' physics at all. It is weird and astonishing, for instance time is variable, light bends, photons can be in two places, and sometimes one photon can 'tell' what a partner is doing. I don't think I shall ever really understand quantum mechanics but through reading this book I know it won't hurt me, and I feel happy with what I do know...and when I see TV programmes like Einstein and Eddington I know what they're talking about which makes me feel extremely clever. I now feel brave enough to try Richard Feynman. Quantum Theory is an excellent read and I highly recommend it.
Very Dissapointed , 10 Nov 2008
I was very dissapointed with this book but it serves me right as I bought it based on the hype. I cringed with just about every hack joke or wittism he tried. If you think you'll learn something even mildly serious about QM or are seeking painless enlightenment, this book is pointless even within its genre - read Feynmans QED and Six not so Easy Peaces (which are, really, once explained by Feynman.)These two simple books (with just a bit more of well worthwhile effort) you'll find will round rings around Chown. If you want enlightenment on Cosmology go for Asimov. If you know something about QM already you'll spot and cringe at the often mixed-up attemps to explain many things. The cartoon style cover does this book good justice though.
How quantum devices work., 02 Feb 2008
"Beginners Guide" is about the relevance of quantum physics to everyday technology: semiconductors and transistors; energy sources and greenhouse gases; some not-so-everyday phenomena like superconductivity and SQUIDS; even the cutting edge stuff of quantum computing and quantum encryption. All are explained in terms of a few precisely stated properties of matter at the atomic scale or smaller. The weirdness of wave-particle duality and indeterminacy become accessible with minimal recourse to mathematics.
In successive chapters an insight is given into how materials acquire their large-scale chemical, physical and electrical properties by reason of what is going on at the level of electron, photon or atom. The way these particles are able to act with a concerted weirdness then seems just as reasonable as their bizarre individual behaviour.
The maths would be even easier to follow if more care had been taken with proofreading. Errors are confined mostly to the panels of mathematical details (where parameters annoyingly come and go like quantum particles) but there are also some in the main text.
Historical background is sketchy. We read: "James Clerk Maxwell . . . around 1860 showed the aether postulate was unnecessary". Arguably, it was he who started this entire goose chase; Michelson and Morley were still on the trail in 1887 and famously drew a blank; a kludge was proposed in 1892 by Lorentz; Einstein cleared things up a bit in 1905 - but the hunt ran and ran.
A brief analysis of how quantum indeterminacy might actually come about is presented in a well-argued short chapter at the end. If this stimulates further interest, then get the excellent companion volume Quantum Physics - Illusion or Reality. Both books are rewarding reads.
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, engaging and fascinating, 27 Dec 2008
Quantum is the unfinished story of the development of quantum mechanics. Unfinished? Yes, because the question which lies at the centre of the book is not yet resolved.
The story starts in late Victorian times when classic physics seems close to completion, to being able to explain the world fully. There seem to be just a few loose ends to be tied up. However, it is those few loose ends inside the atom, explaining the nature of the electron, being able to account for light behaving both like a particle and a wave etc which lead to the unravelling (at the atomic level) of previous world views.
Through the lives of Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, De Broglie and others we see how diferent strands of quantum theory were hotly contested and how it developed through analysis and synthesis.
One of the most exciting things about the book to me was the rigour and power of true scientific method. Quantum physics, despite being in some ways mind blowingly ethereal is subject to the most searching challenge and detailed research. We see two of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Einstein and Bohr sitting on opposite sides of the dispute, deploying their most powerful destructive intellectual weapons in order to test the veracity of each others ideas. If ever you doudt bthe superiority of genuine science over pseudo Science (are you listening Charles Windsor), read this book.
At the centre of the dispute is the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum mechanics, at the heart of which is the assertion that reality is not indepedent of measurement. (it would take too long to explain more, but Schrodingers famous cat is involved). Through the book we see Bohr besting Einstein, but one feels that the author is sympathetic towards Einstein and there is a sense of relief at the end of the book that the door remains open for the father of relativity.
Also fascinating is that roughly half of the book is about the major advances in the development of quantum theory in the first three decades of the 20th Century and thereafter debate switched to the interpretation, in a nutshell, is it reality or just a convenient model describing the effect of an underlying reality.
This is no dry science book however, one gets to know the people involved and the story has as its setting the major events of 20th Century history, the first world war, the rise of the nazis, the development of the atomic bomb, and the cold war.
Kumar is a clear and engaging writer, and my only two criticims would be firstly that in his efforts to be comprehensoible he maybe keeps too far away from the hard science at times. Secondly the odd summarising passage, showing briefly what the current state of play was would be helpful.
Overall, definitely recommended, it's a book for everyone, not just the scientifically minded.
The entanglement of classical and quantum realities, 11 Dec 2008
The great Einstein-Bohr debate about physical reality is interesting not only to physicists, but also to great many readers interested in understanding the nature. This discussion between Bohr and Einstein over the interpretation of quantum theory began in 1927 at the fifth Solvay Conference. The debate over the ability of quantum theory to describe nature was fueled by many leading physicists of the time, some of whom directly contributed to the development of quantum physics, but later found themselves arguing against the theory they helped to create. Notable examples include Erwin Schrodinger, Paul Dirac, and Max Planck; the latter two did not actively participate in challenging the quantum reality. Bohr and Einstein spent many years intensely debating the nature of reality, and their discussions are known for very famous Einstein's comments such as; "God does not play dice,' or "God is slick, but he ain't mean," and Bohr's response was "don't bring God into this (discussion of quantum physics)." Bohr argued vigorously against both deterministic and realistic world, but Einstein was equally adamant to defend these two physical and philosophical concepts. Deterministic philosophy was spurred by Newtonian mechanics; if we know a system and its physical properties (size, color, or position) at one point in time, then at some point in future we can predict the system based on these physical properties. Bohr argued that complete knowledge of the present can result only in a description of what the future most probably will be like, but there is no such thing as certainty in quantum world. This thought is mystified by what is commonly called Copenhagen interpretation, and its strong proponents were Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Born. Classical reality envisioned by Einstein was supported to a certain level by Schrödinger. Recent historical research shows that Paul Dirac had his own doubts about Copenhagen school of thought (1), and Max Planck, the founding father of quantum physics, lived until 1947 did not participate directly in Einstein-Bohr debate because of his own insecurities about quantum reality. When experimental test for Bell's inequality was conducted by Alain Aspect and others, many thought that Einstein was definitely wrong, but recent advances say, not so fast. Physicist Roger Penrose and many others believe that quantum physics is an incomplete theory (2). Few weeks ago when Large Hadron Collider (LHC) conducted test runs, Stephen Hawking expressed pessimism of finding Higgs Boson in LHC experiments by stating that "I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of 100 dollars that we won't find the Higgs." In a poll conducted in 1999 at Cambridge University, 55% of physicists polled for none of the existing quantum interpretations are right. This shows that not everything is settled in quantum physics.
History of quantum physics is the best example to understand how scientists work. Their collective efforts to understand the universe we live in through publications, conferences, discussions correspondence and collaborative efforts are essential to scientific advancement. The author describes these things well in the book, but he falls short in certain areas; his current work uses previously published works of Max Jammer (3), Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg (4) as his few sources of information, but he could have researched a little more by talking to people who were directly associated with Einstein or Bohr. In a recent book by Louisa Gilder (5), after interviewing a colleague of Boris Podolsky, she reported that Rosen or Podolsky never asked Einstein for his permission when they published the classic Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paper, 'Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete." It is also stated elsewhere that Einstein never thought this was going to be a paper; the ideas came out during informal discussions (6). The author discusses the results of crucial experiments such as tests of Bell's theorem, and other work that may have lead to confusions or mistakes.
Many who are familiar with the history of quantum physics think that even though Einstein is unquestionably the best scientist mankind has ever seen but they also believe that he was grumpy old man who did not appreciate new and novel ideas in physics. This is certainly not true according to physicists who knew him. He helped Max Planck in the development of early ideas such as quantized energy levels in quantum physics. Einstein was not against new ideas such as the probabilistic or statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, but the denial of an independent reality bothered him immensely. This lead to another famous quote from Einstein: "I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." The author resurrects these ideals of Einstein hastily when he discusses experimental tests of Bell's theorem. He concludes that Einstein's doubts about the completeness of quantum mechanics are vindicated.
1. Alisa Bokulich, Paul Dirac and the Einstein-Bohr Debate. Perspectives on Science 2008, vol. 16, no. 1, pages 103-114.
2. Spirituality and the Nature of Reality - A discussion between Roger Penrose and T. D. Singh, Published by Bhaktivedanta Institute, 2007 (ISBN: 8190136976)
3. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics
4. The Conceptual Completion and the Extensions of Quantum Mechanics 1932-1941: Epilogue, Aspects of the Further Development of Quantum Theory 1942-1999: ... (Historical Development of Quantum Theory)
5. The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn
6. Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries Tag: Author of in Search of Schrod. Cat
7. Einstein, Bohr and the Quantum Dilemma: From Quantum Theory to Quantum Information
Bringing quantum theory to life, 01 Dec 2008
This is a quite marvellous book. There must be loads of people, like me, that are daunted by the complexity of quantum theory, and yet feel like it's something they ought to try and get their heads round.
There have been no end of books that have given a tantalising snapshot of what it means for the layman, but never so comprehensively done. Manjit Kumar does a great job of weaving together the science, the history and the human drama of it all, to create a book that, by the standards of most science books, can only be described as a page turner.
At the heart of the book is the decades long rivalry between Einstein and Bohr, and although that rivalry provides a central structure, there is generous space for the contribution and role of all the other main players in the development of quantum theory through the first part of the twentieth century, starting with Max Planck's discovery of the quantum.
It's hard to recommend this book too highly. Anyone who has read and enjoyed popular science books over the years is almost sure to find that Quantum fills many gaps in their knowledge and links together the historical narrative in a fresh and vivid way.
The personal touch, 11 Nov 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book!
Excellent, interesting, story and subject.
I thought Kumar put it across in a very entertaining way, I did not get all of the minutia of the physics but that did not matter, I especially
enjoyed the suspense and his sense of humour. I also enjoyed the way
the story wove characters and events together, all the way through I was kept interested, he knows how to tell a story.
I got alot out of the information in the book; it filled in gaps for me in my knowledge about the subject as well as providing a really interesting back drop to the stuff I'd done at school. (I liked science till I got to the 6th Form.) The book worked on many different levels, as a history I became aware that there were quite often unintended results or consequences from experiments or ideas, some times others taking up
something someone else had accidently stumbled across and looking at it in a new way, I liked that, I found it thought provoking.
This gave me an interesting insight in to the whole unfolding
understanding of the science as it happened in time, this was one of the main areas focused on. Another aspect, the personalities
and how they interacted what they got up to I enjoyed hearing about
their interests and how they lived. 'Painting a picture' of the
scientists as people really worked for me.
Bookbag.co.uk, 07 Nov 2008
Quantum is a fascinating, powerful and brilliantly written book that shows one of the most important theories of modern science in the making and discusses its implications for our ideas about the fundamental nature of the world and human knowledge, while presenting intimate and insightful portraits of people who made the science. Highly recommended.
Magda Healey writing for the Bookbag.co.uk
A brief but painless introduction, 28 Dec 2008
I bought this book at a book signing event in Waterstones whilst waiting around for Ben Goldacre to show up to sign his book Bad Science. Marcus Chown was also in attendance and I chatted a while with him about this book amongst other things.
I have read several books on physics and quantum theory by authors such as Brian Green, John Gribbin and Stephen Hawking and was familiar with quantum theory; familiar in the sense that I have a vague understanding of the topic and find it thoroughly interesting but decidedly bonkers.
Given my existing "knowledge", I wasn't sure if this book would be for me, but I bought it anyway, and now, having found a few spare hours dotted through the Christmas holiday, I am very glad indeed that I did.
The book is split into two parts; i) Small Things and ii) Big Things. Small things discusses the strange world of quantum theory, wave-particle duality, interference, superposition, quantum tunnelling and the like, whilst part two focusses, in general, on Einstein's theories of relativity.
Given the book's title, I was surprised at the amount of space given over to relativity. (That little bit of prior "knowledge" meant I figured the author intended to bring us full circle and explain why General/Special relativity break down when describing the very small in black holes or at the Big Bang - which he does.) However, the Big stuff sits nicely alongside the Small and in the final chapter prepares readers for the even stranger world that string theorists inhabit.
The book progresses at an nice, even pace with plenty of examples and illustrations, which, given the topic, end up being a little contrived and exaggerated. But this is not a problem; what is being discussed is just as crazy as anything the author dreams up to help illustrate the science!
For me, the individual sections were a little brief, but for the reader that is coming fresh to the topic I doubt this will be the case. Instead, "Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You" is a thoroughly interesting introduction to this fascinating area of science.
And, true to his word, the book didn't hurt one little bit.
Big Banger, 10 Dec 2008
At last I've got it - thanks to Chown's excellent and concise book. Happily, he realises most readers won't have a thorough grounding in math, and introduces the universe, quantum theory and relativity, with characteristic verve. His highly original metaphors and use of analogy ensure the layperson moves effortlessly through the text, a real page-turner. I've given copies to my nephews who are studying physics at GCSE level, as a counter to the usual dry texts they find a chore. We've all found this book far more accessible than other `popularised' books and superficial whizz bang TV progs on the subject that merely left us bewildered. Given the current level of science illiteracy, especially around these areas, this excellent introduction should improve our grasp of some of the major developments in physics over the last century, including the attempt to recreate the Big Bang a few weeks ago. There is a useful glossary and some good suggestions for further reading.
A little fact-checking doesn't hurt either, 09 Dec 2008
If the author can't get the simple fact that physicist/chemist Robert Boyle was Irish and not, as he says in his book, English is there any reason to suppose we can rely on the rest of the content?
But there you go, that's Quantum - it's the small things that get you in the end.
Quantum Theory CAN hurt you - but you're OK in Mr Chown's hands., 23 Nov 2008
I've come across quantum mechanics before a couple of times, and it has always been a big puzzle. However, since it seems to keep coming up all the time, I've always wished I knew more - and having read this book I do! This book is very user-friendly. It tells you about quantum mechanics in ways anyone can understand and makes it interesting and appealing. Quantum Mechanics doesn't seem like anything else - not like 'old' physics at all. It is weird and astonishing, for instance time is variable, light bends, photons can be in two places, and sometimes one photon can 'tell' what a partner is doing. I don't think I shall ever really understand quantum mechanics but through reading this book I know it won't hurt me, and I feel happy with what I do know...and when I see TV programmes like Einstein and Eddington I know what they're talking about which makes me feel extremely clever. I now feel brave enough to try Richard Feynman. Quantum Theory is an excellent read and I highly recommend it.
Very Dissapointed , 10 Nov 2008
I was very dissapointed with this book but it serves me right as I bought it based on the hype. I cringed with just about every hack joke or wittism he tried. If you think you'll learn something even mildly serious about QM or are seeking painless enlightenment, this book is pointless even within its genre - read Feynmans QED and Six not so Easy Peaces (which are, really, once explained by Feynman.)These two simple books (with just a bit more of well worthwhile effort) you'll find will round rings around Chown. If you want enlightenment on Cosmology go for Asimov. If you know something about QM already you'll spot and cringe at the often mixed-up attemps to explain many things. The cartoon style cover does this book good justice though.
How quantum devices work., 02 Feb 2008
"Beginners Guide" is about the relevance of quantum physics to everyday technology: semiconductors and transistors; energy sources and greenhouse gases; some not-so-everyday phenomena like superconductivity and SQUIDS; even the cutting edge stuff of quantum computing and quantum encryption. All are explained in terms of a few precisely stated properties of matter at the atomic scale or smaller. The weirdness of wave-particle duality and indeterminacy become accessible with minimal recourse to mathematics.
In successive chapters an insight is given into how materials acquire their large-scale chemical, physical and electrical properties by reason of what is going on at the level of electron, photon or atom. The way these particles are able to act with a concerted weirdness then seems just as reasonable as their bizarre individual behaviour.
The maths would be even easier to follow if more care had been taken with proofreading. Errors are confined mostly to the panels of mathematical details (where parameters annoyingly come and go like quantum particles) but there are also some in the main text.
Historical background is sketchy. We read: "James Clerk Maxwell . . . around 1860 showed the aether postulate was unnecessary". Arguably, it was he who started this entire goose chase; Michelson and Morley were still on the trail in 1887 and famously drew a blank; a kludge was proposed in 1892 by Lorentz; Einstein cleared things up a bit in 1905 - but the hunt ran and ran.
A brief analysis of how quantum indeterminacy might actually come about is presented in a well-argued short chapter at the end. If this stimulates further interest, then get the excellent companion volume Quantum Physics - Illusion or Reality. Both books are rewarding reads.
This book will change the way you see the world around you!, 18 Nov 2008
Lynne McTaggart is an award-winning investigative writer, who is perhaps best known for her revealing work in What Doctors Don't Tell You. But in The Field she moves from conventional medicine to traditional science, cutting-edge physics and the meaning of the universe itself.
The Field began when McTaggart started researching the basis for and validity of homoeopathy. Along the way, she states that she stumbled on evidence that most of what we think of as scientific fact is now being rewritten by a handful of very reputable and very established scientists.
With her very balanced and informative style of writing, McTaggart reveals research that will startle some and excite others. But no matter on which side of the fence you sit, you will come away from this book with the conclusion that the world simply doesn't work the way that many of us, including scientists themselves, thought it did not so long ago.
McTaggart does not exaggerate when she proclaims that we are "on the brink of a revolution" in terms of our understanding of science. And while this might sound like hyperbole that could be easily brushed aside, she has compiled enough evidence to back up her claim.
The research being undertaken may be heavy-duty if not obtuse, but McTaggart makes it very understandable. She leads us by the hand through experiments that have been under way for approximately the last fifty years. Their findings point to conclusions that the universe is more akin to a sea of vibrations.
The implications of this vibrational theory range from the potential of an inexhaustible source of energy to the explanation of clairvoyance, remote viewing and distance healing.
The Field is a fascinating book to read to say the least. And with her extensive footnotes and bibliography, it's difficult for even the most hardened of sceptics to dismiss. Simply put, The Field will change how you see things!
The Mind-Body Book The World Has Been Waiting For, 15 Nov 2008
Written by award-winning journalist Lynne McTaggart, "The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe" is a ground-breaking book exhaustively exploring the enchanting complexities and wondrous discoveries of modern-day 21st century science, adducing remarkable evidence to prove that "The Zero Point Field" connects everything we have seen, heard or encountered to the wide, convoluted tapestry of human experiences.
Renowned for her wit, diligence and profundity, McTaggart deftly delineates how we are all connected - not just to one another, but also to nature, places and everything else that has ever happened in our universe - collating meticulous research, extensive interviews, and historic documents to craft a palatable, inventive message that wonderfully stretches the imagination like never before.
Human potential, she advances, can far surpass what modern science stipulates. This contention, though, is not without it's detractors; and, not least to her astonishment, many have rallied to villify this legitimate presentation of the theory that there is a measurable "life-force" in the universe. But of the numerous discursions into the frustratingly opaque area of quantum physics, none, of course, shine with the same stirring brilliance and polished mastery like those in the last electrifying third of this best-selling book. In part three, readers are afforded the rare opportunity to hear hallowed scientists Bill Church, Hal Puthoff, Karl Pribram, Ed Mitchell, Robert Jahn and Rupert Sheldrake express their thoughts, feelings and concerns on the controversial subject.
Creator and publisher of the astonishing 1999 release "What Doctors Don't Tell You", McTaggart produces not only one of the most inspiring novels in the last few years, but also one that is buttressed by compelling research culled from all corners of the world. Despite it's abstruse concepts, "The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe" is imbued with a gripping readability, replacing the widely-accepted and conventional perpection of man with a vivid, arresting depiction of collective strength, spiritual attainment and human transcendence. Offering unparalleled insight into the world of the supernatural, "The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe" is fraught with multiple surprises, scintillating twists and extraordinary information: readers of all stripes - scientists, New Agers, physicists, philosophers - will definitely rush to grab onto this one.
Fascinating, 16 Jul 2008
Although written for the lay man, this book does take some concentration for those of us who have never studied physics. That said, it is well worth the effort. A fascinating read that will make you look at life, the world and the whole universe in a completely new way
wrong end of the trumpet...hmm?, 01 Jul 2008
I came across this book some years ago and, with a grounding in arts and only a couple of years of very elementary science, I cannot possibly comment on the current veracity of the ideas in it. The word 'science' is somewhat misleading deriving as it does from the Latin 'to know' whereas 'to guess' would provide a more honest root to this ever changing discipline.
It is some time since I read McTaggart but I recall it was an intersting read which triggered a tentative foray into Quantum Theory which sounded to me pretty much what the ancients and mystics had 'known' all along - although from my point of view McT was looking at things down the wrong end of the trumpet.
What Quantum seems to tell us is that there are no absolutes and that our thoughts, emotions and intentions form our experience of the 'material world'. Those still hooked on the idea of an 'absolute' (as I understand even Einstein was - spending the rest of his life trying to disprove his equation) will find refuge in religion of one sort or another... including science which has, for many, replaced older faiths.
So... having written this review of the book and talked it up, I suppose I'd better read it again to see if I agree with myself. Hey, ho...
Interesting, but not a particularly easy read , 13 May 2008
This book is full of interesting information, and cutting edge ideas based on new research into physics. However, I found it quite hard-going at times - the author's style isn't particularly readable. I often had to grit my teeth in determination just to make it to the end of a chapter - and unfortunately I gave up about two-thirds way through the book. I think this would be a great book in the hands of a more entertaining writer.
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Customer Reviews
Excellent, engaging and fascinating, 27 Dec 2008
Quantum is the unfinished story of the development of quantum mechanics. Unfinished? Yes, because the question which lies at the centre of the book is not yet resolved.
The story starts in late Victorian times when classic physics seems close to completion, to being able to explain the world fully. There seem to be just a few loose ends to be tied up. However, it is those few loose ends inside the atom, explaining the nature of the electron, being able to account for light behaving both like a particle and a wave etc which lead to the unravelling (at the atomic level) of previous world views.
Through the lives of Planck, Bohr, Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, De Broglie and others we see how diferent strands of quantum theory were hotly contested and how it developed through analysis and synthesis.
One of the most exciting things about the book to me was the rigour and power of true scientific method. Quantum physics, despite being in some ways mind blowingly ethereal is subject to the most searching challenge and detailed research. We see two of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Einstein and Bohr sitting on opposite sides of the dispute, deploying their most powerful destructive intellectual weapons in order to test the veracity of each others ideas. If ever you doudt bthe superiority of genuine science over pseudo Science (are you listening Charles Windsor), read this book.
At the centre of the dispute is the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum mechanics, at the heart of which is the assertion that reality is not indepedent of measurement. (it would take too long to explain more, but Schrodingers famous cat is involved). Through the book we see Bohr besting Einstein, but one feels that the author is sympathetic towards Einstein and there is a sense of relief at the end of the book that the door remains open for the father of relativity.
Also fascinating is that roughly half of the book is about the major advances in the development of quantum theory in the first three decades of the 20th Century and thereafter debate switched to the interpretation, in a nutshell, is it reality or just a convenient model describing the effect of an underlying reality.
This is no dry science book however, one gets to know the people involved and the story has as its setting the major events of 20th Century history, the first world war, the rise of the nazis, the development of the atomic bomb, and the cold war.
Kumar is a clear and engaging writer, and my only two criticims would be firstly that in his efforts to be comprehensoible he maybe keeps too far away from the hard science at times. Secondly the odd summarising passage, showing briefly what the current state of play was would be helpful.
Overall, definitely recommended, it's a book for everyone, not just the scientifically minded.
The entanglement of classical and quantum realities, 11 Dec 2008
The great Einstein-Bohr debate about physical reality is interesting not only to physicists, but also to great many readers interested in understanding the nature. This discussion between Bohr and Einstein over the interpretation of quantum theory began in 1927 at the fifth Solvay Conference. The debate over the ability of quantum theory to describe nature was fueled by many leading physicists of the time, some of whom directly contributed to the development of quantum physics, but later found themselves arguing against the theory they helped to create. Notable examples include Erwin Schrodinger, Paul Dirac, and Max Planck; the latter two did not actively participate in challenging the quantum reality. Bohr and Einstein spent many years intensely debating the nature of reality, and their discussions are known for very famous Einstein's comments such as; "God does not play dice,' or "God is slick, but he ain't mean," and Bohr's response was "don't bring God into this (discussion of quantum physics)." Bohr argued vigorously against both deterministic and realistic world, but Einstein was equally adamant to defend these two physical and philosophical concepts. Deterministic philosophy was spurred by Newtonian mechanics; if we know a system and its physical properties (size, color, or position) at one point in time, then at some point in future we can predict the system based on these physical properties. Bohr argued that complete knowledge of the present can result only in a description of what the future most probably will be like, but there is no such thing as certainty in quantum world. This thought is mystified by what is commonly called Copenhagen interpretation, and its strong proponents were Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Born. Classical reality envisioned by Einstein was supported to a certain level by Schrödinger. Recent historical research shows that Paul Dirac had his own doubts about Copenhagen school of thought (1), and Max Planck, the founding father of quantum physics, lived until 1947 did not participate directly in Einstein-Bohr debate because of his own insecurities about quantum reality. When experimental test for Bell's inequality was conducted by Alain Aspect and others, many thought that Einstein was definitely wrong, but recent advances say, not so fast. Physicist Roger Penrose and many others believe that quantum physics is an incomplete theory (2). Few weeks ago when Large Hadron Collider (LHC) conducted test runs, Stephen Hawking expressed pessimism of finding Higgs Boson in LHC experiments by stating that "I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of 100 dollars that we won't find the Higgs." In a poll conducted in 1999 at Cambridge University, 55% of physicists polled for none of the existing quantum interpretations are right. This shows that not everything is settled in quantum physics.
History of quantum physics is the best example to understand how scientists work. Their collective efforts to understand the universe we live in through publications, conferences, discussions correspondence and collaborative efforts are essential to scientific advancement. The author describes these things well in the book, but he falls short in certain areas; his current work uses previously published works of Max Jammer (3), Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg (4) as his few sources of information, but he could have researched a little more by talking to people who were directly associated with Einstein or Bohr. In a recent book by Louisa Gilder (5), after interviewing a colleague of Boris Podolsky, she reported that Rosen or Podolsky never asked Einstein for his permission when they published the classic Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paper, 'Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete." It is also stated elsewhere that Einstein never thought this was going to be a paper; the ideas came out during informal discussions (6). The author discusses the results of crucial experiments such as tests of Bell's theorem, and other work that may have lead to confusions or mistakes.
Many who are familiar with the history of quantum physics think that even though Einstein is unquestionably the best scientist mankind has ever seen but they also believe that he was grumpy old man who did not appreciate new and novel ideas in physics. This is certainly not true according to physicists who knew him. He helped Max Planck in the development of early ideas such as quantized energy levels in quantum physics. Einstein was not against new ideas such as the probabilistic or statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, but the denial of an independent reality bothered him immensely. This lead to another famous quote from Einstein: "I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements. That is an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it." The author resurrects these ideals of Einstein hastily when he discusses experimental tests of Bell's theorem. He concludes that Einstein's doubts about the completeness of quantum mechanics are vindicated.
1. Alisa Bokulich, Paul Dirac and the Einstein-Bohr Debate. Perspectives on Science 2008, vol. 16, no. 1, pages 103-114.
2. Spirituality and the Nature of Reality - A discussion between Roger Penrose and T. D. Singh, Published by Bhaktivedanta Institute, 2007 (ISBN: 8190136976)
3. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics
4. The Conceptual Completion and the Extensions of Quantum Mechanics 1932-1941: Epilogue, Aspects of the Further Development of Quantum Theory 1942-1999: ... (Historical Development of Quantum Theory)
5. The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn
6. Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries Tag: Author of in Search of Schrod. Cat
7. Einstein, Bohr and the Quantum Dilemma: From Quantum Theory to Quantum Information
Bringing quantum theory to life, 01 Dec 2008
This is a quite marvellous book. There must be loads of people, like me, that are daunted by the complexity of quantum theory, and yet feel like it's something they ought to try and get their heads round.
There have been no end of books that have given a tantalising snapshot of what it means for the layman, but never so comprehensively done. Manjit Kumar does a great job of weaving together the science, the history and the human drama of it all, to create a book that, by the standards of most science books, can only be described as a page turner.
At the heart of the book is the decades long rivalry between Einstein and Bohr, and although that rivalry provides a central structure, there is generous space for the contribution and role of all the other main players in the development of quantum theory through the first part of the twentieth century, starting with Max Planck's discovery of the quantum.
It's hard to recommend this book too highly. Anyone who has read and enjoyed popular science books over the years is almost sure to find that Quantum fills many gaps in their knowledge and links together the historical narrative in a fresh and vivid way.
The personal touch, 11 Nov 2008
I really enjoyed reading this book!
Excellent, interesting, story and subject.
I thought Kumar put it across in a very entertaining way, I did not get all of the minutia of the physics but that did not matter, I especially
enjoyed the suspense and his sense of humour. I also enjoyed the way
the story wove characters and events together, all the way through I was kept interested, he knows how to tell a story.
I got alot out of the information in the book; it filled in gaps for me in my knowledge about the subject as well as providing a really interesting back drop to the stuff I'd done at school. (I liked science till I got to the 6th Form.) The book worked on many different levels, as a history I became aware that there were quite often unintended results or consequences from experiments or ideas, some times others taking up
something someone else had accidently stumbled across and looking at it in a new way, I liked that, I found it thought provoking.
This gave me an interesting insight in to the whole unfolding
understanding of the science as it happened in time, this was one of the main areas focused on. Another aspect, the personalities
and how they interacted what they got up to I enjoyed hearing about
their interests and how they lived. 'Painting a picture' of the
scientists as people really worked for me.
Bookbag.co.uk, 07 Nov 2008
Quantum is a fascinating, powerful and brilliantly written book that shows one of the most important theories of modern science in the making and discusses its implications for our ideas about the fundamental nature of the world and human knowledge, while presenting intimate and insightful portraits of people who made the science. Highly recommended.
Magda Healey writing for the Bookbag.co.uk
A brief but painless introduction, 28 Dec 2008
I bought this book at a book signing event in Waterstones whilst waiting around for Ben Goldacre to show up to sign his book Bad Science. Marcus Chown was also in attendance and I chatted a while with him about this book amongst other things.
I have read several books on physics and quantum theory by authors such as Brian Green, John Gribbin and Stephen Hawking and was familiar with quantum theory; familiar in the sense that I have a vague understanding of the topic and find it thoroughly interesting but decidedly bonkers.
Given my existing "knowledge", I wasn't sure if this book would be for me, but I bought it anyway, and now, having found a few spare hours dotted through the Christmas holiday, I am very glad indeed that I did.
The book is split into two parts; i) Small Things and ii) Big Things. Small things discusses the strange world of quantum theory, wave-particle duality, interference, superposition, quantum tunnelling and the like, whilst part two focusses, in general, on Einstein's theories of relativity.
Given the book's title, I was surprised at the amount of space given over to relativity. (That little bit of prior "knowledge" meant I figured the author intended to bring us full circle and explain why General/Special relativity break down when describing the very small in black holes or at the Big Bang - which he does.) However, the Big stuff sits nicely alongside the Small and in the final chapter prepares readers for the even stranger world that string theorists inhabit.
The book progresses at an nice, even pace with plenty of examples and illustrations, which, given the topic, end up being a little contrived and exaggerated. But this is not a problem; what is being discussed is just as crazy as anything the author dreams up to help illustrate the science!
For me, the individual sections were a little brief, but for the reader that is coming fresh to the topic I doubt this will be the case. Instead, "Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You" is a thoroughly interesting introduction to this fascinating area of science.
And, true to his word, the book didn't hurt one little bit.
Big Banger, 10 Dec 2008
At last I've got it - thanks to Chown's excellent and concise book. Happily, he realises most readers won't have a thorough grounding in math, and introduces the universe, quantum theory and relativity, with characteristic verve. His highly original metaphors and use of analogy ensure the layperson moves effortlessly through the text, a real page-turner. I've given copies to my nephews who are studying physics at GCSE level, as a counter to the usual dry texts they find a chore. We've all found this book far more accessible than other `popularised' books and superficial whizz bang TV progs on the subject that merely left us bewildered. Given the current level of science illiteracy, especially around these areas, this excellent introduction should improve our grasp of some of the major developments in physics over the last century, including the attempt to recreate the Big Bang a few weeks ago. There is a useful glossary and some good suggestions for further reading.
A little fact-checking doesn't hurt either, 09 Dec 2008
If the author can't get the simple fact that physicist/chemist Robert Boyle was Irish and not, as he says in his book, English is there any reason to suppose we can rely on the rest of the content?
But there you go, that's Quantum - it's the small things that get you in the end.
Quantum Theory CAN hurt you - but you're OK in Mr Chown's hands., 23 Nov 2008
I've come across quantum mechanics before a couple of times, and it has always been a big puzzle. However, since it seems to keep coming up all the time, I've always wished I knew more - and having read this book I do! This book is very user-friendly. It tells you about quantum mechanics in ways anyone can understand and makes it interesting and appealing. Quantum Mechanics doesn't seem like anything else - not like 'old' physics at all. It is weird and astonishing, for instance time is variable, light bends, photons can be in two places, and sometimes one photon can 'tell' what a partner is doing. I don't think I shall ever really understand quantum mechanics but through reading this book I know it won't hurt me, and I feel happy with what I do know...and when I see TV programmes like Einstein and Eddington I know what they're talking about which makes me feel extremely clever. I now feel brave enough to try Richard Feynman. Quantum Theory is an excellent read and I highly recommend it.
Very Dissapointed , 10 Nov 2008
I was very dissapointed with this book but it serves me right as I bought it based on the hype. I cringed with just about every hack joke or wittism he tried. If you think you'll learn something even mildly serious about QM or are seeking painless enlightenment, this book is pointless even within its genre - read Feynmans QED and Six not so Easy Peaces (which are, really, once explained by Feynman.)These two simple books (with just a bit more of well worthwhile effort) you'll find will round rings around Chown. If you want enlightenment on Cosmology go for Asimov. If you know something about QM already you'll spot and cringe at the often mixed-up attemps to explain many things. The cartoon style cover does this book good justice though.
How quantum devices work., 02 Feb 2008
"Beginners Guide" is about the relevance of quantum physics to everyday technology: semiconductors and transistors; energy sources and greenhouse gases; some not-so-everyday phenomena like superconductivity and SQUIDS; even the cutting edge stuff of quantum computing and quantum encryption. All are explained in terms of a few precisely stated properties of matter at the atomic scale or smaller. The weirdness of wave-particle duality and indeterminacy become accessible with minimal recourse to mathematics.
In successive chapters an insight is given into how materials acquire their large-scale chemical, physical and electrical properties by reason of what is going on at the level of electron, photon or atom. The way these particles are able to act with a concerted weirdness then seems just as reasonable as their bizarre individual behaviour.
The maths would be even easier to follow if more care had been taken with proofreading. Errors are confined mostly to the panels of mathematical details (where parameters annoyingly come and go like quantum particles) but there are also some in the main text.
Historical background is sketchy. We read: "James Clerk Maxwell . . . around 1860 showed the aether postulate was unnecessary". Arguably, it was he who started this entire goose chase; Michelson and Morley were still on the trail in 1887 and famously drew a blank; a kludge was proposed in 1892 by Lorentz; Einstein cleared things up a bit in 1905 - but the hunt ran and ran.
A brief analysis of how quantum indeterminacy might actually come about is presented in a well-argued short chapter at the end. If this stimulates further interest, then get the excellent companion volume Quantum Physics - Illusion or Reality. Both books are rewarding reads.
This book will change the way you see the world around you!, 18 Nov 2008
Lynne McTaggart is an award-winning investigative writer, who is perhaps best known for her revealing work in What Doctors Don't Tell You. But in The Field she moves from conventional medicine to traditional science, cutting-edge physics and the meaning of the universe itself.
The Field began when McTaggart started researching the basis for and validity of homoeopathy. Along the way, she states that she stumbled on evidence that most of what we think of as scientific fact is now being rewritten by a handful of very reputable and very established scientists.
With her very balanced and informative style of writing, McTaggart reveals research that will startle some and excite others. But no matter on which side of the fence you sit, you will come away from this book with the conclusion that the world simply doesn't work the way that many of us, including scientists themselves, thought it did not so long ago.
McTaggart does not exaggerate when she proclaims that we are "on the brink of a revolution" in terms of our understanding of science. And while this might sound like hyperbole that could be easily brushed aside, she has compiled enough evidence to back up her claim.
The research being undertaken may be heavy-duty if not obtuse, but McTaggart makes it very understandable. She leads us by the hand through experiments that have been under way for approximately the last fifty years. Their findings point to conclusions that the universe is more akin to a sea of vibrations.
The implications of this vibrational theory range from the potential of an inexhaustible source of energy to the explanation of clairvoyance, remote viewing and distance healing.
The Field is a fascinating book to read to say the least. And with her extensive footnotes and bibliography, it's difficult for even the most hardened of sceptics to dismiss. Simply put, The Field will change how you see things!
The Mind-Body Book The World Has Been Waiting For, 15 Nov 2008
Written by award-winning journalist Lynne McTaggart, "The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe" is a ground-breaking book exhaustively exploring the enchanting complexities and wondrous discoveries of modern-day 21st century science, adducing remarkable evidence to prove that "The Zero Point Field" connects everything we have seen, heard or encountered to the wide, convoluted tapestry of human experiences.
Renowned for her wit, diligence and profundity, McTaggart deftly delineates how we are all connected - not just to one another, but also to nature, places and everything else that has ever happened in our universe - collating meticulous research, extensive interviews, and historic documents to craft a palatable, inventive message that wonderfully stretches the imagination like never before.
Human potential, she advances, can far surpass what modern science stipulates. This contention, though, is not without it's detractors; and, not least to her astonishment, many have rallied to villify this legitimate presentation of the theory that there is a measurable "life-force" in the universe. But of the numerous discursions into the frustratingly opaque area of quantum physics, none, of course, shine with the same stirring brilliance and polished mastery like those in the last electrifying third of this best-selling book. In part three, readers are afforded the rare opportunity to hear hallowed scientists Bill Church, Hal Puthoff, Karl Pribram, Ed Mitchell, Robert Jahn and Rupert Sheldrake express their thoughts, feelings and concerns on the controversial subject.
Creator and publisher of the astonishing 1999 release "What Doctors Don't Tell You", McTaggart produces not only one of the most inspiring novels in the last few years, but also one that is buttressed by compelling research culled from all corners of the world. Despite it's abstruse concepts, "The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe" is imbued with a gripping readability, replacing the widely-accepted and conventional perpection of man with a vivid, arresting depiction of collective strength, spiritual attainment and human transcendence. Offering unparalleled insight into the world of the supernatural, "The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe" is fraught with multiple surprises, scintillating twists and extraordinary information: readers of all stripes - scientists, New Agers, physicists, philosophers - will definitely rush to grab onto this one.
Fascinating, 16 Jul 2008
Although written for the lay man, this book does take some concentration for those of us who have never studied physics. That said, it is well worth the effort. A fascinating read that will make you look at life, the world and the whole universe in a completely new way
wrong end of the trumpet...hmm?, 01 Jul 2008
I came across this book some years ago and, with a grounding in arts and only a couple of years of very elementary science, I cannot possibly comment on the current veracity of the ideas in it. The word 'science' is somewhat misleading deriving as it does from the Latin 'to know' whereas 'to guess' would provide a more honest root to this ever changing discipline.
It is some time since I read McTaggart but I recall it was an intersting read which triggered a tentative foray into Quantum Theory which sounded to me pretty much what the ancients and mystics had 'known' all along - although from my point of view McT was looking at things down the wrong end of the trumpet.
What Quantum seems to tell us is that there are no absolutes and that our thoughts, emotions and intentions form our experience of the 'material world'. Those still hooked on the idea of an 'absolute' (as I understand even Einstein was - spending the rest of his life trying to disprove his equation) will find refuge in religion of one sort or another... including science which has, for many, replaced older faiths.
So... having written this review of the book and talked it up, I suppose I'd better read it again to see if I agree with myself. Hey, ho...
Interesting, but not a particularly easy read , 13 May 2008
This book is full of interesting information, and cutting edge ideas based on new research into physics. However, I found it quite hard-going at times - the author's style isn't particularly readable. I often had to grit my teeth in determination just to make it to the end of a chapter - and unfortunately I gave up about two-thirds way through the book. I think this would be a great book in the hands of a more entertaining writer.
Finally, a book about what is known, 30 Jan 2007
Unlike many books relating to quantum mechanics, and the strange universe that exists on the quantum scale, this book is dedicated to a subject that is known and (as far as can be said about anything relating to the quantum scale) understood.
This book does a superb job of explaining to the layman (such as myself) what quantum electrodynamics is, and restricts itself to doing just that job and doing it well.
QED loud and clear, 12 Jul 2005
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