Are Quanta Real

**** A reprint of the 1974 Indiana edition with a new foreword by Douglas R. Hofstadter. It is a non-mathematical book, engagingly written, and intended to lead the lay reader to an understanding of quantum theory. Also available in paper binding at $7.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"A thorough, illuminating exploration of the most consequential controversy raging in modern science." --New York Times Book Review An Editor's Choice, New York Times Book Review Longlisted for PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Longlisted for Goodreads Choice Award Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's solipsistic and poorly reasoned Copenhagen interpretation. Indeed, questioning it has long meant professional ruin, yet some daring physicists, such as John Bell, David Bohm, and Hugh Everett, persisted in seeking the true meaning of quantum mechanics. What Is Real? is the gripping story of this battle of ideas and the courageous scientists who dared to stand up for truth. "An excellent, accessible account." --Wall Street Journal "Splendid. . . . Deeply detailed research, accompanied by charming anecdotes about the scientists." --Washington Post

When a ship's surgeon during a routine episode of bloodletting noticed that the sailors' blood was brighter in the tropics than in the north, he hypothesized that heat was a form of energy. When a young boy tried to visualize how a beam of light would look like by riding alongside it at the same speed, he began thinking along lines that eventually changed our views of space and time. When a student caught hay fever and went to recover on Heligoland, he started a major revolution in physics. These are but just some of the stories covered in this entertaining book that deals with the history of physics from the end of the 19th-century to about 1930. Quips, Quotes and Quanta (2nd Edition) is unique in that it contains anecdotes on physicists creating new ideas. Often the thinking of the creators of what is now called "modern physics" is revealed through quotes. Thematic and biographical in nature, this book also includes many personal incidents. This second edition has been revised to include new material: a prologue, epilogue, glossary and chronology, and photograph's as well as additional quotes and anecdotes.

"Niels Bohr was a central figure in quantum physics, well-known for his work on atomic structure and his contributions to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this book, philosopher Slobodan Perović explores the way Bohr practiced and understood physics, and the implications of this for our understanding of modern science, especially contemporary quantum experimental physics. Perović's method of studying Bohr is philosophical-historical, and his aim is to make sense of both Bohr's understanding of physics and his method of inquiry. He argues that in several important respects, Bohr's vision of physics was driven by his desire to develop a comprehensive perspective on key features of experimental observation as well as emerging experimental work. Perović uncovers how Bohr's distinctive breakthrough contributions are characterized by a multi-layered, phased approach of building on basic experimental insights inductively to develop intermediary and overarching hypotheses. The strengths and limitations of this approach, in contrast to the mathematically or metaphysically driven approaches of other physicists at the time, made him a thoroughly distinctive kind of theorist and scientific leader. Once we see that Bohr played the typical role of a laboratory mediator, and excelled in the inductive process this required, we can fully understand the way his work was generated, the role it played in developing novel quantum concepts, and its true limitations, as well as current adherence to and use of Bohr's complementarity approach among contemporary experimentalists"--

It sounds alien and esoteric, but quantum mechanics is very real, and a crucial part of what makes the modern world possible. In Real Quanta, Martijn van Calmthout makes quantum “magic” clearer, and shows how it fits into our world, and how its discoverers would be amazed by all that it has accomplished.

THE HUMAN SPIRIT HAS REAL USUABLE ENERGY. Jeffery takes us from the false ghostlike Spiritual images we grew up with, to the reality of the POWER available to us in our individual Spiritual Quanta (energy). His studies and discoveries in physics lead him to the realization that just because you can’t “see” this Spiritual power with your eyes, the results are unmistakable. Research in Quantum Mechanics has lead to the harnessing of the unseen energy in the sub-atomic world. These scientists aren’t able to see or measure these tiny particles, but they are able to know the results they bring about. These powerful results come from energy they can’t see or measure. We even use some of these findings in our everday life, like the microwave oven, satellites, computers, and many other ways. Without changing your own personal belief system, Jeffery will show how to discover the unseen power available to us in our Spiritual energy (quanta). These are basic Spiritual laws that if used, will direct us in finding our own personal path.

Rob Clifton was one of the most brilliant and productive researchers in the foundations and philosophy of quantum theory; he died tragically at the age of 38. Jeremy Butterfield and Hans Halvorson present fourteen of his finest papers, all of which combine exciting philosophical discussion with rigorous mathematical results. Many of these papers break wholly new ground, either conceptually or technically. Others resolve a vague controversy into a precise technical problem, which is then solved; still others solve an open problem that had been in the air for some time. All of them show scientific and philosophical creativity of a high order, genuinely among the very best work in the field. The papers are grouped into four parts. First come four papers about the modal interpretation of quantum mechanics. Part II comprises three papers on the foundations of algebraic quantum field theory, with an emphasis on entanglement and nonlocality. The two papers in Part III concern the concept of a particle in relativistic quantum theories. One paper analyses localization; the other analyses the Unruh effect (Rindler quanta) using the algebraic approach to quantum theory. Finally, Part IV contains striking new results about such central issues as complementarity, Bohr's reply to the EPR argument, and no hidden variables theorems; and ends with a philosophical survey of the field of quantum information. The volume includes a full bibliography of Clifton's publications. Quantum Entanglements offers inspiration and substantial reward to graduates and professionals in the foundations of physics, with a background in philosophy, physics, or mathematics.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Science News favorite science book of 2019 As you read these words, copies of you are being created. Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: physics has been in crisis since 1927. Quantum mechanics has always had obvious gaps—which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable book, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us. Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many Worlds Theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established. Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding—of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of.