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Excellent, engaging and fascinating

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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

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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

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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

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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	Customer Rating:
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