- Hardcover: 464 pages
- Publisher: WW Norton; 1 edition (April 27 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393078299
- ISBN-13: 978-0393078299
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 17.3 x 3.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#144,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #92 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Quantum Theory
- #96 in Books > Science > Physics > Quantum Theory
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
A super-collider of a book, shaking together an exotic cocktail of free-thinking physicists, tracing their chaotic interactions and seeing what God-particles and black holes fly up out of the maelstrom... Provides probably the most lucid and detailed intellectual history ever written of a body of theory that makes other scientific revolutions look limp-wristed by comparison.
Product Description
"One of the best guides yet to the central conundrums of modern physics."--John Banville
Quantum theory is weird. As Niels Bohr said, if you weren't shocked by quantum theory, you didn't really understand it. For most people, quantum theory is synonymous with mysterious, impenetrable science. And in fact for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly written account of this fundamental scientific revolution, focusing on the central conflict between Einstein and Bohr over the nature of reality and the soul of science. This revelatory book takes a close look at the golden age of physics, the brilliant young minds at its core--and how an idea ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century. 16 pages of photographs
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
If a tree falls in the forest and no physicist was there - it didn't happen,
By David Wineberg "David Wineberg" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Quantum (Hardcover)
There are a number of very striking themes and trends in Quantum that other reviewers have not brought out, being dazzled, no doubt, by the swift pacing, tantalizing prose and cliffhanger hooks that Kumar employs so magnificently in Quantum.First, as someone who has struggled to understand quantum mechanics when it is presented in textbooks as a whole system, I was delighted to find that physicists have the same problem. Even (if not especially) Albert Einstein. By taking us through the history of it, and enjoying the exhilaration of every incremental discovery, theory and step, I find I am really comfortable reading about it, and have no difficulty assimilating it. When you're along for the ride instead of the textbook, it makes a gigantic difference. Bravo, Kumar. Second, it became painfully obvious that physics is far more philosophy than science. I felt like the arguments came from my Logic 101 class. Socrates would have enjoyed crossing swords with Bohr. The arguments of the scientists were really basic, philosophical differences of opinion, not the least bit esoteric or idiosyncratic. It seems that medicine is not the only "science" where they tell you to get a second opinion. That was a revelation, and it made physics all that more human. Third, Quantum confirms a lifelong suspicion that this was and is a young man's game. It seems that every time things started to get stale, some precocious 26 year old student would come along with a new portion of a theory, and rock the establishment. And then live off that discovery for the rest of his life - winning the Nobel Prize (as almost every one of them eventually did), getting professorships - but never shaking the tree again. In music we would call them one hit wonders. Einstein was about the only one with two hits - brainstorms in 1905 and 1916 - but then, even he couldn't fathom the totality of quantum physics and never made another major contribution to its progress. By the age of 50 he was calling himself an "old fool". So in addition to all the praise heaped on Quantum for its superior exposition, I think it's a wonderful addition to the discussion of the human condition. Valuable on a number of levels. What a great book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant,
This review is from: Quantum (Hardcover)
Manjit Kumar's "Quantum" is an absolute page turner. I could hardly put it away and wantedto read it all over again once I came to the end. There is not a lot of new content which cannot be found in biographies or other expositions of the quantum struggle, which ended with Copenhagen. What makes this book unique is a high-pace narrative style pulling the reader from one chapter with one fundamental discovery into the next combined with an almost uncanny ability of the author to unfold most complex physical and philosophical concepts at that same high pace. The narrative also makes the discussions, tensions and emotions so vivid that one feels compelled to jump right into the scenes to hear the debates first hand. Like David Winneberg, I relived my own struggle with Quantum Theory as a student, the alienation I felt by Bohr's ad-hoc postulates of what I expected the theory should actually deliver, the psi which yielded results, but didn't seem to have its own meaning, the interference of possibilities, which affect results without actually having to materialize, up to the abandonment of objective reality. Back in the 80th, Copenhagen was still the the dogma and had to be swallowed without objection in order to become a physicist. I became a mathematician... Many commentators see the book as a rehabilitation of Einstein. I felt the same way, but this feeling is actually not justified by the last chapter about the most recent experimental disproofs of Bell's and Leggett's inequalities, which would have confirmed Einstein's position (Leggett's at least partly). Copenhagen has once again prevailed. Maybe it's my bias aganst Copenhagen, but maybe it's Kumar's narrative that instills the desire in the reader that somewhen, somebody will come to free us from the Copenhagen prison. For those who enjoyed the Kumar's book and want to experience the struggle with Quantum Theory first hand, I can recommend Richard Feynman's book "QED". Masterfully, Feynman lets concrete physics emerge from the absurdity of the quantum. No math required to witness that miracle.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Monumental work,
By Avid Reader "Avid Reader" (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Quantum (Hardcover)
Whoa, just finished the book - what an achievement to compile this narrative on the dynamics of such an intricate topic involving (besides Einstein and Bohr) 3 dozen other players! Wasn't an especially easy book for me (with no degree in Physics), and on a few occasions I had to re-read a number of paragraphs for the sake of conceptual clarity, or scroll back to look up certain places amongst the chapters as the book follows the numerous contributors to the quantum story throughout the years. Very good book, though.A comment: Maybe I'm wrong, but I know the discoverers of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation as Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. The book claims (on page 331 of my paperback copy) that it is Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow. Is the same Robert known under two different names, or is it a typo in Kumar's book, I wonder? (I'll look up the correct answer tomoroow).
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
