Quantum Legacies
"Friendships and rivalries, the demands of war, the limits of technology . . . these are among the rich universe of forces that conflict and conspire to bring us what we usually gloss over as the inevitable march of scientific progress. Kaiser's book provides a wonderful glimpse behind the curtain into the messier--but far more human--truth of the matter. Beautifully written and extraordinarily well researched, the book makes a profound point about the sociopolitical nature of science that all readers--from physics buffs and historians to students and laypeople--need to hear."--Amanda Gefter, author of Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn "Kaiser is a master writer, and this is some of his finest work. An extraordinary combination of technical science, rich history, and telling anecdote, Quantum Legacies is cutting-edge scholarship rendered in a style equal to any popular science writing. When a non-academic asks me 'what is the history of science?' I will give them this book."--Matthew Stanley, author of Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I
The ideas at the root of quantum theory remain stubbornly, famously bizarre: a solid world reduced to puffs of probability; particles that tunnel through walls; cats suspended in zombielike states, neither alive nor dead; and twinned particles that share entangled fates. Les mer
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In Quantum Legacies, David Kaiser introduces readers to iconic episodes in physicists’ still-unfolding quest to understand space, time, and matter at their most fundamental. In a series of vibrant essays, Kaiser takes us inside moments of discovery and debate among the great minds of the era—Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Stephen Hawking, and many more who have indelibly shaped our understanding of nature—as they have tried to make sense of a messy world.
Ranging across space and time, the episodes span the heady 1920s, the dark days of the 1930s, the turbulence of the Cold War, and the peculiar political realities that followed. In those eras as in our own, researchers’ ambition has often been to transcend the vagaries of here and now, to contribute lasting insights into how the world works that might reach beyond a given researcher’s limited view. In Quantum Legacies, Kaiser unveils the difficult and unsteady work required to forge some shared understanding between individuals and across generations, and in doing so, he illuminates the deep ties between scientific exploration and the human condition.
Detaljer
- Forlag
- University of Chicago Press
- Innbinding
- Innbundet
- Språk
- Engelsk
- ISBN
- 9780226698052
- Utgivelsesår
- 2020
- Format
- 22 x 14 cm
Anmeldelser
"Friendships and rivalries, the demands of war, the limits of technology . . . these are among the rich universe of forces that conflict and conspire to bring us what we usually gloss over as the inevitable march of scientific progress. Kaiser's book provides a wonderful glimpse behind the curtain into the messier--but far more human--truth of the matter. Beautifully written and extraordinarily well researched, the book makes a profound point about the sociopolitical nature of science that all readers--from physics buffs and historians to students and laypeople--need to hear."--Amanda Gefter, author of Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn "Kaiser is a master writer, and this is some of his finest work. An extraordinary combination of technical science, rich history, and telling anecdote, Quantum Legacies is cutting-edge scholarship rendered in a style equal to any popular science writing. When a non-academic asks me 'what is the history of science?' I will give them this book."--Matthew Stanley, author of Einstein's War: How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I