A lively, fascinating biography of the father of quantum mechanics by the bestselling author of the science classic, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
Erwin Schrödinger, best known for his famous “Schrödinger's Cat” paradox, is one of the most famous physicists of the early twentieth century and a member of a new generation of quantum physicists, including Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and Niels Bohr. Yet Schrödinger's scientific discoveries only scratch the surface of what makes him so fascinating. More rumpled than Einstein, a devotee of eastern religion and philosophy, and infamous for his alternative lifestyle, his major contribution to physics—and the work for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1933—was to some extent a disappointment to him. Regardless, Schrödinger's masterpiece became an important part of the new physics of his time. This book tells the story of Schrödinger's surprisingly colorful life during one of the most fertile and creative moments in the history of science.
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction: It's Not Rocket Science 1
1 Nineteenth-Century Boy 7
Antecedents
Early years
An empire's last hurrah
Scientific stirrings
From schoolboy to undergraduate
2 Physics before Schrodinger 22
Newton and the world of particles
Maxwell and the world of waves
Boltzmann and the world of statistics
3 Twentieth-Century Man 44
Student life
Life beyond the lab
War service on the Italian front
Back to Vienna
The aftermath
The peripatetic professor
4 The First Quantum Revolution 67
When black bodies are bright
Enter the quantum
The quantum becomes real
Inside the atom
Tripping the light fantastic
Einstein again
5 Solid Swiss Respectability 91
The university and the ETH
Personal problems and scientific progress
Physics and philosophy
Life and love
My world view
Quantum statistics
6 Matrix Mechanics 112
Half-truths
What you see is what you get
Matrices don?t commute
Justice isn't always done
7 Schrodinger and the Second Quantum Revolution 124
Science and sensuality
Riding the wave
A quantum of uncertainty
The Copenhagen consensus
8 The Big Time in Berlin 148
Making waves in America
Berlin and Brussels
The golden years
Back to the future
People and politics
9 The Coming of the Quantum Cat 172
Back in the USA
Oxford and beyond
Faster than light
The cat in the box
From Oxford with love
10 There, and Back Again 187
Whistling in the dark
Reality bites
The unhappy return
Belgian interlude
11 The happiest years of my life? 201
Dev
Settling in
Early days at the DIAS
Family
Life in Dublin
The post-war years
Many worlds
12 What is Life? 224
Life itself
Quantum chemistry
The green pamphlet
Schrodinger's variation on the theme
The double helix
13 Back to Vienna 243
Farewell to Dublin
Home is the hero
Declining years
The triumph of entropy
14 Schrodinger's Scientific Legacy 259
Hidden reality and a mathematician's mistake
The Bell test and the Aspect experiment
Quantum cryptography and the no cloning theorem
Quantum teleportation and classical information
The quantum computer and the Multiverse
Quantum physics and reality
Postscript: Quantum Generations 285
Notes 291
Sources and Further Reading 297
Picture Acknowledgements 305
Index 307
Overview
A lively, fascinating biography of the father of quantum mechanics by the bestselling author of the science classic, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
Erwin Schrödinger, best known for his famous “Schrödinger's Cat” paradox, is one of the most famous physicists of the early twentieth century and a member of a new generation of quantum physicists, including Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and Niels Bohr. Yet Schrödinger's scientific discoveries only scratch the surface of what makes ...