The Quantum Moment: How Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg Taught Us to Love Uncertainty

by Robert P. Crease, Alfred Scharff Goldhaber

Overview

"A very fun way to learn about where quantum physics comes from and the strange, even astonishing places it has gone." —Peter Galison, Harvard University, author of Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps

From multiverses and quantum leaps to Schrödinger’s cat and time travel, quantum mechanics has irreversibly shaped the popular imagination. Entertainers and writers from Lady Gaga to David Foster Wallace take advantage of its associations and nuances. In The Quantum Moment, philosopher Robert P. Crease and physicist Alfred Scharff Goldhaber recount the fascinating story of how the quantum jumped from physics into popular culture, with brief explorations of the underlying math and physics concepts and descriptions of the fiery disputes among figures including Einstein, Schrödinger, and Niels Bohr. Understanding and appreciating quantum imagery, its uses and abuses, is part of what it means to be an educated person in the twenty-first century. The Quantum Moment serves as an indispensable guide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393351927
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/30/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Robert P. Crease is the chairman of the philosophy department at Stony Brook University and the author of several books on science, including The Quantum Moment and The Great Equations. He lives in New York City.

Alfred Scharff Goldhaber is a professor of physics at Stony Brook University whose research ranges from elementary particles to cosmology. He also teaches an unorthodox course that introduces quantum mechanics by way of optics.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 The Newtonian Moment 9

Interlude: The Grand Design 27

2 A Pixelated World 33

Interlude: Max Planck Introduces the Quantum 47

3 Quantum Leaps 55

Interlude: Niels Bohr Uses Quantum Leaps to Make Atoms Go 67

4 Randomness 70

Interlude: Albert Einstein Shows How God Plays Dice 83

5 The Matter of Identity: A Quantum Shoe That Hasn't Dropped 86

Interlude: Wolfgang Pauli and the Exclusion Principle, Satyendra Bose and Bosons 100

6 Sharks and Tigers: Schizophrenia 109

Interlude: Erwin Schrödinger's Map/Werner Heisenberg's Map 130

7 Uncertainty 137

Interlude: The Uncertainty Principle 162

8 Reality Fractured: Cubism and Complementarity 165

Interlude: Complementarity, Objectivity, and the Double-Slit Experiment 182

9 No Dice! 187

Interlude: John Bell and His Theorem 205

10 Schrödinger's Cat 211

Interlude: The Border War 228

11 Rabbit Hole: The Thirst for Parallel Worlds 233

Interlude; Multiverses 251

12 Saving Physics 254

Conclusion: The Now Moment 272

Notes 281

Acknowledgments 307

Credits 311

Index 313

Editorial Reviews

"Pleasant and informal…The Quantum Moment is a good introduction to concepts in quantum theory and will help us better understand how science is bound up with human culture."

Physics Today - Thiago Hartz

"An entertaining read…[The Quantum Moment] asks why quantum theory carries such a metaphorical punch…and why it seems to be rediscovered in every generation."

Nature - Jim Baggott

"Approachable…[and] entertaining…Crease and Goldhaber detail in mostly demotic terms and chipper tones the history of quantum physics, its main concepts, its discoverers, its prominent detractors (Einstein among them), and its subsequent jargonization—how and why phrases like quantum leap and uncertainty principle have escaped the highly technical shackles of the scientific lexicon to become metaphors within literature, philosophy, and self-help."

Los Angeles Review of Books - Max Ross

"A fascinating tour of the lives and afterlives of some of the most captivating concepts of quantum theory."

David Kaiser

"A thorough and clear guide to the philosophical problems posed by the nature of the subatomic world."

James Trefil

08/25/2014
Histories of quantum theory are typically dense with complex, abstract ideas, but philosopher Crease and physicist Goldhaber, both of Stony Brook University, offer a new twist, adding a fascinating look at the ways the mainstream world has embraced (though not always accurately!) the concepts of quantum mechanics. Pop culture took up the quantum cause with far more gusto than most physicists. When first proposed, quantum theory was deemed “ugly, weird, unpredictable,” and “quite distasteful.” Experimentalist Robert Milliken tried to kill the idea, but his lab results kept confirming it. The authors cheerfully discuss how much Einstein, along with many of his peers, hated the way the theory allowed uncertainty to toy with reality. While physicists struggled to fill in the missing bits of their incomplete theories, quirky quantum ideas became parts of a “sphinxian riddle” that captured the mainstream imagination and inspired everyone from cartoonists and sculptors to such writers as Ian Fleming and John Updike. Crease and Goldhaber have written an accessible and entertaining history that embraces both the science and the silliness of quantum mechanics. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Reading The Quantum Moment is a very fun way to learn about where quantum physics comes from and the strange, even astonishing places it has gone with or without the physicists for whom it is the language of their craft."

Peter Galison

"Rich and entertaining… [The Quantum Moment] is an introduction to the brave new world we inhabit."

New York Times - Amir Alexander

"This is an amazing book for scientists and humanists alike! Every page yields surprises—not only about the complex history of quantum physics but about how it impacts our understanding of ourselves in daily life. Required reading for anyone concerned with casting the fate of humankind in a radically new light."

Edward S. Casey

"A delight! A tour de force that is both illuminating and extraordinarily readable."

Gino Segrè

★ 2014-09-09
A history of some of the most "forceful, imaginative, and insightful" minds in quantum theory and how the world became entranced by their scientific language. The lyrical vocabulary of quantum mechanics is all around us—the word "quantum" alone is used to describe seemingly every entity on Earth—despite the fact that very few individuals, if anyone, truly understand how quantum mechanics works. Ideas like entanglement and superposition have specific mathematical correlations and imply bizarre and beautiful things about the universe and how it behaves. Popular culture, on the other hand, takes a lot of creative liberty, and the results illuminate human nature on a different, but perhaps no less beautiful, scale. Crease (World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement, 2011, etc.) and Goldhaber, professors of philosophy and physics at Stony Brook University, recount a series of historical moments that occurred during the development of quantum mechanics in order to demonstrate how quickly and profoundly scientific language worked its way into the artistic objects we love. Countless writers, artists and philosophers have taken ideas from the quantum realm and applied them as metaphors for the human condition. Through the authors' careful and vivid storytelling, science and culture inspire and reflect one another, from Einstein's theories of relativity to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to modern conceptions of causality. The authors keep their discussions of these dense topics clear and fun to read without sacrificing detail by including technical "interludes" between chapters. Crease and Goldhaber provide an excellent reminder that quantum mechanics affects so much of what we do and say and that concepts imagined 100 years ago will influence the physical and intellectual spaces we inhabit in the future. Always entertaining and meticulously composed, this book will reorient your relationship with the quantum.

Kirkus Reviews