If you know a little scientific history you know that in 1919 Arthur Eddington found empirical confirmation for Albert Einstein's theory of general reIf you know a little scientific history you know that in 1919 Arthur Eddington found empirical confirmation for Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity by measuring the deflection of light from distant stars by the gravitational force of the sun as measured by the shifting apparent positions of stars in an eclipse. The magnitude of the effect matched Einstein's predictions and were the first out-of-sample test of his theory (explaining the perihelion of Mercury was also explained by the theory, but was not a proper out of sample test). The result catapulted Einstein from publicly unknown (his name had not appeared in the newspapers before) to global fame, with my favorite New York Times headline of all time: "Lights All Askew in the Heavens ; Men of Science More or Less Agog Over Eclipse Observations; Einstein Theory Triumphs; Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to be, but Nobody Need Worry."
If you know a medium amount of scientific history you know that Eddington was a biased partisan who was out to find for Einstein (possibly because he was a pacifist who opposed World War I and either liked his fellow pacifist Einstein or wanted to re-establish global ties by vindicating a German scientist over the most famous English one, Isaac Newton), that his instruments had huge error bands, that he dropped some of the data that disagreed with Einstein, that his work was not reproducible, and in sum his experimental "proof" was just cooked up to prove what he set out to prove.
If you read this impressive and meticulous scholarly work by someone who has studied this question for decades you learn that the "know a little" happy folktale version is actually much closer to the truth than the "know a medium amount" sophisticated and cycnical version. In particular, Daniel Kennefick makes many arguments, the two most important of which are:
--Eddington co-did the work with Frank Dyson (no relation to Freeman). In fact, Dyson largely organized and led the work and did the data analysis. Importantly, Dyson appears to have been skeptical of General Relativity (and a key researcher on the project was outright hostile to it).
--The biggest argument against Eddington was that one of the three sets of data was discarded (there were two sets of plates from observations from Brazil and one set of plates from observations in Principe). Kennefick shows that before any analysis was done the researchers thought something had gone wrong with the observations in that data so the decision to discard it does not seem to have been based on the results. Moreover, by their own measures, including those data would have resulted in an average result across all the data sets even closer to the Einstein prediction. Finally, modern re-analysis of the discarded data show that even by itself it agreed with general relativity if measured properly.
--Eddington's ex ante theoretical framing of the "Newton" prediction and the "Einstein prediction" made it easier to establish a pro-Newton result by generously interpreting his theory to predict some deflection of light (half the Einstein prediction) when it probably predicted none.
As I read it, I did sometimes worry that Kennefick was like the Eddington of the cynical myth--someone who was out to prove a thesis (vindicating Eddington's vindication of Einstein) and had access to vastly more data on the question than anyone so was able to sort it to make his argument. That said, it was a "sometimes worry" because the argument did seem compelling and much of the "medium knowledge" darker version does seem to have come from people who approached the issue much more superficially and casually.
This vindication of Eddington is only a part of the book. The book is also a meticulous history of Eddington, eclipse astronomy and its difficulties, rise and subsequent fall, and more that I had never read in a scientific history or popularization and was particularly fascinating.
Most interesting, however, was he extensive and thoughtful discussion of what all of this tells you about the scientific method, Popper's version of falsification, whether theory should guide evidence, how scientists pick the null hypotheses they test, when you should stop tinkering with an experiment, how scientific bias does and does not help. Some of these questions were fleshed out further in his discussion of the Michelson and Morley experiment that came up with the surprising results of overturning the ether and the successors to it that tried to prove the original experiment wrong and re-establish the ether.
The bottom line of this discussion is that Kennefick shows the simple Popper version of science is wrong because you never really know whether you've falsified a theory or run a false experiment, that experimenters are better when they bring biases and hypotheses generated by theory to bear, that science has an important social and cultural aspect to it at least for prolonged periods of time, and that our knowledge advances by a combination of theory, evidence, and other types of evidence, not just simple crisp tests. Ultimately this is a much richer and more exciting and more realistic vision of science than either the simple ("Einstein proved right") or medium ("Einstein proof was fraudulent") versions of the story....more
A nice short straightforward book that zooms in on a familiar episode in the history of physics but tells it in a manner that is both a good story andA nice short straightforward book that zooms in on a familiar episode in the history of physics but tells it in a manner that is both a good story and also illustrative of broader lessons about science. The story begins with the triumph of Newton's theory and then its use to predict a hitherto unknown planet--Neptune--that is inferred from the way the orbit of Uranus is assumed to be perturbed by an unobserved object. The same logic led scientists to hypothesize a planet Vulcan that orbited between Mercury and the Sun as a way of explaining peculiarities in Mercury's orbit (its perihelion) while maintaining the hypothesis of Newtonian gravitation. What is remarkable is that 19th century scientists were able to measure the perihelion so precisely, explain away most of it as a result of the gravity exerted by the other planets, but still have a precise residual that was left. Scientists continued searching for Vulcan, thinking they saw it in solar transits and during eclipses, and for decades it kept being discovered and rediscovered. But all these discoveries and rediscoveries were just wishful thinking, based on the assumption that Newton was right and also the previous triumph of Neptune. This tension between theory and evidence, and when you should datamine to support your elegant theory and when you should give up the theory, is one of the interesting tensions in the book. Ultimately, of course, general relativity explained Mercury's perihelion, so instead of finding data to prove an old theory the existing data ended up supporting a new one. And then, with a little wishful thinking, general relativity was confirmed out of sample in 1919--but that is the story told in No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity which I intend to read soon....more
I wanted a book on why the universe seems to be explicable in terms of math at a deeper philosophical level. Instead I got a decent history of physicsI wanted a book on why the universe seems to be explicable in terms of math at a deeper philosophical level. Instead I got a decent history of physics that covers some familiar ground (the birth of relativity and quantum mechanics) and some unfamiliar ground (recent mathematical advances in gauge theory), with the combination of capsule biographies and light explanations that are not enough to fully explain.
What made the book a little more than that was the overarching narrative about the different styles of physics, experimental, theoreticians responding to experiments, and theoreticians who treat mathematical beauty as an end unto itself. Graham Farmelo argues that Einstein and Dirac were exemplars of this last approach and their modern heirs are string theorists who are working entirely unmoored from experiments or even commonsense reality, but Farmelo is still betting on them because of the mathematical beauty of their approach. Over the course of the story, Farmelo describes a period of falling out between math and physics and how they came back together again that I had not previously been aware of.
I'm a big fan of the Jim Ottaviani's graphic biographies, having read Feynman and Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and BirI'm a big fan of the Jim Ottaviani's graphic biographies, having read Feynman and Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas before and planning to read The Imitation Game. Although pitched to children, they are reasonably sophisticated in the science they convey and show a lot of the rough edges and more problematic parts of thee lives. This biography of Hawking was a cradle-to-grave story that attempted to convey his major scientific discoveries, his life/illness, and his role as a popularizer of science. The excitement around the rapidly evolving research on black holes and their role in cosmology in the late 1960s and early 1970s is conveyed well. I found the way that the Soviet Union was and was not engaged on these scientific matters particularly interesting. I also had not appreciated how much time and effort he put into A Brief History of Time....more
A nice, short book on cosmology with an emphasis on the theories of the shape, history and the future of the universe, from the Big Bang to the latestA nice, short book on cosmology with an emphasis on the theories of the shape, history and the future of the universe, from the Big Bang to the latest ideas. The book can be read at multiple levels--with larger font text, smaller font text (described as optional but I found it valuable), detailed definitions of terms and lots of pictures with captions....more
A beautifully written short book on the physics of time--like Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. Some chapters presented more straight phA beautifully written short book on the physics of time--like Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. Some chapters presented more straight physics while others managed to get through Proust, St. Augustine, the Maharabata, and Greek philosophers I've never heard of (Anaximander anyone???). Some chapters provide the canonical physics of the laws of thermodynamics, special and general relativity, and the like, while others are less settled physics (loop quantum gravity, Rovelli's field) and much further afield (speculations on consciousness and the mind).
Many of the paragraphs are delightful (e.g., "But the increase in the entropy of the universe is not rapid, like the sudden expansion of a gas in a box: it is gradual, it takes time. Even with a gigantic ladle it takes time to stir something as big as the universe. Above all, there are obstacles and closed doors to its growth--passages where it occurs only with great difficulty."). But the book was unsuccessful in getting me to remotely understand about one-third of the concepts he was presenting, especially the ones that centered around loop quantum gravity. Maybe that is the cost of writing in a relatively abbreviated matter and filling space not just with physics but with Husserl and Heidegger as well.
The most interesting idea, at least for me, was the more subtle presentation of entropy than I had previously understood. Rovelli makes the familiar point that most of the law of physics work equally well in reverse and if you were watching a video you could not tell the difference between forward and backward. The one exception is second law of thermodynamics which says entropy can never decrease--so it stays the same or increases. Entropy, Rovelli argues, is central to time, memory, the evolution of the universe, why we can remember the past but not the future, etc.
What I hadn't understood before is the arbitrariness of entropy, at least that is what Rovelli argues. He uses the example of a deck of cards. If all the red are first and all the black are second that is a low entropy state. Shuffle the deck and entropy increases. So far so good. But Rovelli points out that ANY initial configuration of the deck is low entropy from some perspective (as in the ordering is 9, 2, 6, Jack, etc.--and if you shuffle will lose that particular ordering). He argues that we only see the universe in a "blurry" manner, sort of like being able to distinguish black from red but not all the different numbered cards. As a result, the increase (or non-decrease) of entropy is a function of our own limited perceptions. And, in fact, entropy need not increase--but other concepts of it could be decreasing, it is only that we are able to exist/remember is the part of the blur that it increases.
An excellent book that does not answer the title question—but is mostly convincing that the question is worth asking and that we can make scientific pAn excellent book that does not answer the title question—but is mostly convincing that the question is worth asking and that we can make scientific progress in addressing it. The book is well written with an interspersing of human stories, scientific description, and Becker’s own more original analysis/arguments/interpretation of the historical field of “quantum foundations”, which is to say understanding what the weird equations of quantum mechanics mean.
Unlike most histories of science, Adam Becker’s book in some ways is about failure and going badly off track not success. Specifically, the failure of physicists to think seriously about the origins and meanings of quantum mechanics, the marginalization of those who tried to, and the problems that come from physicists acting as amateur philosophers without being aware of major developments in philosophy (like realism overcoming logical positivism/empiricism).
Adam Becker borders on scathing on Bohr and the circle’s around him’s devleopment of what came to be called the “Copenhagen Interpretation” of quantum mechanics. The interpretation centered around probabilistic waves becoming deterministic particles when they are somehow measured by a measuring apparatus that is itself deterministic. In effect, they were assuming that classical mechanics applied to large objects but quantum mechanics to small ones. And more to the point, they were taking an attitude that has been described as “shut up and calculate.”
Becker has four arguments against the Copenhagen interpretation: (i) that it was actually a lot of different interpretations by a lot of different people and never actually a single interpretation; (ii) that all of these failed basic tests of logical consistency; (iii) that all of this was reinforced by Bohr’s charisma and his circle’s antagonism to challenging the intreptation; and (iv) that this is consequential because it inhibits the devlopment of new scientific questions and potential experiments.
Becker then develops some of the alternative interpretations at great length together with mini-biograophies and descriptions of the process of discovery, placing the most emphasis on Bohm’s deterministic pilot waves idea, Everett’s Many Worlds hypothesis and Bell’s inequality. He then rushes briefly through some other ideas towards the end of the book, including superdeterminism, and information theory.
The biographies he tells of these scientists—including Bohr’s exile to Brazil, Everett’s greater interest in drinking/womanizing than in physics, and Bell publishing in a random journal rather than a top one—is not just ancillary entertainment but a core part of the argument. Most science stories are about progress and triumph. This one is to some degree about contingency and chance and the ways it can lead science astray. Bohr’s charisma vs. the problems of the alternative messengers are treated as historical accidents that affected the ability to have a more full debate/research program on the foundations of quantum mechanics. When this was combined with incentives (e.g., all the funding for physics coming from the military) the effects were powerful.
One strength of Becker’s book is his serious intergration of analytic philosophy, his excellent explanations of it, and his relating this to developments in quantum mechanics. He takes the reader through the establishment of logical positivism/empiricism/falsifiability as theories, shows how they were linked to/supported the Copenhagen interpretation, but then shows how these theories have since been superseded in philosophy by a recognition that you cannot just limit yourself to testing empirical predictions but have to embed these tests in a broader theory of underlying reality. Becker is very critical of physicists who are still in a positivist mold which he views as being unaware of the last 50 years of developments in analytical philosophy.
Becker’s book leaves me partially convinced by his conclusion but only partially. He is convincing that the Copenhagen interpretation is wrong/incoherent but is less convincing about the utility of developing alternatives. The proliferation of so many alternatives, the inability to decide between them, and the lack of any large convincing progresss that came out their development leave me wondering whether their marginalization is a self-fulfilling prophecy or maybe inherent in their approach. That said, given uncertainty about where/how we will make scientific progress continuing along the path of better understanding the reality underlying the weirdness of quantum mechanics seems like a worthwhile activity for at least a small fraction of physicists—and Becker is completely convincing that outdated philosophy and internally inconsistent arguments should not be used to deter these investigations....more
I had very high expectations for this book but it did not live up to them. The book is a history of human interest in time travel and the modern interI had very high expectations for this book but it did not live up to them. The book is a history of human interest in time travel and the modern interest in time--from H.G. Wells' The Time Machine through a smidgeon of the modern physics debate on the topic. It combines history, cultural history, science, philosophy and literary criticism over a wide range but all pointed at a narrow--but elusive--topic. Some of the chapters work well, like the one about paradoxes in time travel. But others do not, like a few chapters that have substantial portions devoted to plot summary and light analysis of particular novels. And altogether it did not leave me with a strong or new view on the question.
And a minor point, in the beginning Gleick points out that Wells invented both the idea of a "time machine" and also of a "time traveller". He then provides various earlier references to people traveling in time but doesn't have a fully satisfactory way to distinguish them from Wells other than his terminology. I think the difference might be control--Scrooge is taken to see visions of the past and future against his will while the Time Traveller in Wells deliberately creates a machine and chooses the date. But I'm sure there are many exceptions to that rule too....more
A wonderfully written but not fully satisfying account of the decades long effort to discover gravity waves. Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from OutA wonderfully written but not fully satisfying account of the decades long effort to discover gravity waves. Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space excels at depicting the egos, collaboration, rivalry, and pure risk that goes into big science and experimentation--in this case playing out from the 1960s when the first serious efforts to discover gravity waves were made through 2015 when they were discovered in the most expensive effort ever funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The engineering and pure stamina is impressive to understand and Levin writes from a perspective that is sympathetic without being sycophantic, understanding the person who either fraudulently or exceedingly carelessly data mined his way to thinking he discovered gravity waves decades before it actually happened to the rival witnesses at a Congressional hearing on the feasibility of the detector plans.
What is not fully satisfying is Levin's explanation of the science (long on musical metaphors, short on explanation) and even more importantly the significance of the detection (did we learn anything new? Or is this proof of concept for something we can use to make new astronomical discoveries? Or just an impressive technological feat to test a prediction we pretty much knew had to be true? I am left not knowing the answers to these basic questions). And the fact that the entire book was written before detection with just an epilogue added is also a weakness, although not a huge one because by the end when the detector is being upgraded it is written (in prospect) as if detection is a near certainty....more
A short, beautiful book by an Italian physicist that goes from relativity to quantum mechanics to cosmology to the standard model to attempts to reconA short, beautiful book by an Italian physicist that goes from relativity to quantum mechanics to cosmology to the standard model to attempts to reconcile them (focusing primarily on loop quantum gravity) and ending with a meditation on us/free will. The ground it covers is largely familiar from dozens of other popular science books and the compression of this book means that in many ways it cannot convey or teach nearly as much. But somehow it does an especially good job on the wonder and beauty of it all. And leaves you more optimistic about the future and our ability to reconcile some of these heretofore unreconcilable theories. I would be curious what someone with relatively little exposure to these topics would think of this (which is who the author says is his target audience), my suspicion is that it would be rewarding and is worth broader readership....more
This very good book is well described by its subtitle: "How an idea abandoned by Newtonians, hated by Einstein, and gambled on by Hawking became lovedThis very good book is well described by its subtitle: "How an idea abandoned by Newtonians, hated by Einstein, and gambled on by Hawking became loved." It is a history of the theory and evidence for black holes, beginning with Newton and going through 2013. It is on the lighter side (by the standards of popular physics) with a blend of biography and science. But what was particularly interesting was how well it conveyed the ways in which physicists consistently tried to avoid an idea that was clearly coming out of their models and also how general relativity spent several decades in obscurity before it was revived by greater contact with data and the realities of astrophysics....more
A first rate biography of Isaac Newton. The biography is a relatively short, standard cradle-to-grave account, with significant discussions of Newton'A first rate biography of Isaac Newton. The biography is a relatively short, standard cradle-to-grave account, with significant discussions of Newton's scientific thinking and discoveries, starting with mathematics, then optics, and finally physics -- not counting alchemy, biblical studies, and his role as master of the mint.
James Gleick puts you directly into Newton's life and world through extensive quotations from letters and other documents, all with the original spellings. In some cases, like Newton's playing with infinite sums, Gleick reproduces a facsimile of the document itself.
No scientific life I know is as full of bitter rivalries, secrecy, and a continuum from the ultra-rational to the completely irrational. Towards the end of the book Gleick quotes Keynes' apt description of Newton: "Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago."...more
An inspired choice to do a paired biography of George Gamow and Max Max Delbrück. They were both born at the turn of the century, one in Russia and onAn inspired choice to do a paired biography of George Gamow and Max Max Delbrück. They were both born at the turn of the century, one in Russia and one in Germany, both started in quantum mechanics and then branched out -- Gamow to nuclear physics and cosmology and Delbrück much further afield to biology. And hovering over both of them from the beginning to nearly the end of the book is Niels Bohr and the "spirit of Copenhagen".
One of the things this book conveys most beautifully is how Gamow and Delbrück in their different ways created new circles of scientists in their adopted country of the United States, bringing together different disciplines that rarely worked together and pushing them forward onto new questions that had never been asked before. The results were breakthroughs in the nuclear physics of the creation of atoms in the big bang (in Gamow's case) and the forerunners of DNA theory (in Delbrück's case).
What is particularly interesting about focusing on Gamow and Delbrück, as opposed to say Einstein or Heisenberg or Watson, is how much they got wrong. But they got it wrong in interesting ways that led to new discoveries and theories that were right.
Gino Segre does a good job of shifting between the two and shifting between biography, historical context, and science. Highly recommended -- although not as good as Segre's earlier book Faust in Copenhagen, which also portrays the way scientists think and work together, in that case in producing the ensemble production we know as quantum mechanics....more
A well researched, well told story of the Cavendish lab and the work that culminated in the discovery of the neutron and the splitting of the atom in A well researched, well told story of the Cavendish lab and the work that culminated in the discovery of the neutron and the splitting of the atom in the early 1930s. Experimentation gets short shrift in histories of science as compared to theory, but Ernest Rutherford is as interesting as just about any theorist and using a simple apparatus to essentially visualize the atom itself as Rutherford did in his scattering experiment is about as impressive as any theoretical feat. This book takes those as its prelude and focuses on Walton, Cockcroft and to a lesser degree Chadwick and Rutherford's ongoing role.
In the process, the book tells the interesting story of the inception of larger scale experimentation that moved beyond tabletop experiments by gentleman scientists to large machinery using large amounts of energy and teams of researchers.
The book is more thoroughly researched journalistic history that delves more deeply into the engineering complexities of building the apparatus than into nuclear physics itself, the only reason for not giving it a full five stars....more
One of the best popular physics books I have read in a long time. Leonard Susskind's The Black Hole War spends 450 pages focused on one question: whatOne of the best popular physics books I have read in a long time. Leonard Susskind's The Black Hole War spends 450 pages focused on one question: what happens when information is absorbed by a black hole? It is a debate between Stephen Hawking and other general relativists who think that the information is lost and Gerard 't Hooft, Leonard Susskind and others, who are deeply uncomfortable with the conclusion that black holes can violate the second law of thermodynamics by reducing entropy.
In the course of explaining this debate, Susskind necessarily goes through quantum mechanics, general relativity, string theory, and other areas of physics. And it is leavened with first person discussion of his personal odyssey and his obsession with Stephen Hawking, whose unvarnished portrait as epically arrogant and self-centered yet brilliant and charismatic is considerably more impressive than the pop culture version. The first person account not only makes for interesting reading it also lets you learn something about how science is advanced and debates are settled. Hawking posed his view in 1981. By 1993, there was significant theory/evidence that it was wrong but it still was not universally clear: at a conference in Santa Barbara the Susskind view prevailed in a 39-25 vote, not exactly the method most of us would recognize in determining universal scientific truths. By 2007 Hawking himself conceded in writing and paid a debt.
What makes the book so good, however, is how much Susskind explains in a fundamental way, as close to first principals as possible. One of the remarkable results of the last few decades is that the amount of information stored in a black hole is proportional to its surface area, not its volume. Susskind shows how this result is derived by solving several equations, most of them explained or semi-derived in the text itself, ending with the remarkable result that almost all of the arbitrary constants cancel and you're left with what appears to be one of those fundamental equations that make you believe that physicists really have figured out some of the fundamental laws of nature.
From explanations of Hawking radiation and Black Hole entropy, the book takes you through understanding why Hawking's view was so persuasive and the physical discoveries that were needed to overthrow it -- almost all of them generated by simple and profound thought experiments. The book shows that whether or not string theory is "true," it still helps settle existing questions and generate new ones, including the fact that the world can be thought of us a hologram that has a dual in a lower-dimensional, gravity-less world.
I felt myself following almost everything until the last quarter of the book, which focused on Quantum Chromodynamics and string theory. Not sure if my increasingly low comprehension rate was anything that could be remedied by Susskind or inherent in the material....more
Brian Greene really is one of the best popular science writers. His books give you a real sense of being guided by someone who genuinely knows what thBrian Greene really is one of the best popular science writers. His books give you a real sense of being guided by someone who genuinely knows what they're talking about, who uses metaphors effectively, and who effectively weaves the traditional material in with the new points he is making. He also approaches science with curiosity untainted by dogmatism. He is very much open to speculation, but equally open to the speculation not panning out.
This book is about different concepts of the Multiverse. Greene devotes a chapter to each of what he defines as the major types and then has one or two additional chapters on questions like whether these theories are testable and broader implications.
The multiverse's he consider include the quilted multiverse (which is just our universe extending out infinitely, leaving the possibility of endless accidental repetition -- which follows from some cosmological theories that follow the big bang), the inflationary multiverse (a product of repeated episodes of inflationary expansion, which follows from the addition of inflation to the previous theories), three multiverses that come from different versions of string theory (brane, cyclic and landscape), a quantum multiverse (which is Everett's Many Worlds interpretation, and is more conceptual), a holographic multiverse (which comes from the study of black holes and string theory), and simulated and ultimate multiverses (the last two coming from computer simulations and a deeper mathematical world).
In every case, Greene does a good job of describing the physical theories that lead, usually by accident, to the implication that there is a particular type of multiverse, discusses the scientific status of those theories, and addresses issues around testing them. In the end, Greene has some sympathy with Steven Weinberg's adage that the problem with physics is that we do not take our theories/equations seriously enough as a real description of the world. The example he cites is the Positron, which was a byproduct of Dirac's solution of a math problem that turned out to be real. Greene clearly leans towards the view that the same is true of the multiverse, but he doesn't do much to tip his hand about which one....more
A decent book on Entanglement. Suffers from my pet peeve in popular science books -- which is repeating lots of material you have read over and over aA decent book on Entanglement. Suffers from my pet peeve in popular science books -- which is repeating lots of material you have read over and over again. You would think that someone coming to a book on Entanglement would have read a few other accounts of quantum mechanics before and doesn't need to re-read the familiar history starting from the Greeks through Planck and Bohr, Heisenberg and the rest of the early pioneers. Or that someone who wants an introduction to quantum mechanics would not want to start with a book that focuses on one aspect. The book also suffers from too much biography, which would be fine if it were not for the fact that it features 20+ scientists -- so that mini-biographies of each weigh down the explication.
The second half is interesting, including both theoretical work like Bell's theorem and the experimental tests of it. You can never really understand this material without going through the actual physics (and even then you can't actually understand it), but the shortness of the explication made one suffer a little more than normal in a book of this sort. Plus there was a lot less on applications of entanglement, like encryption, than I might have liked....more
![The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe[s] Report](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347278841l/310330._SX50_.jpg)
Loading...
