Author:
Ball, Philip, 1962- author.
ImprintChicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018.
Description377 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Note:No one can say what quantam mechanics means (and this is a book about it) -- Quantum mechanics is not really about the quantum -- Quantum objects are neither wave nor particle (but sometimes they might as well be) -- Quantum particles aren't in two states at once (but sometimes they might as well be) -- What "happens" depends on what we find out about it -- There are many ways of interpreting quantum theory (and none of them quite make sense) -- Whatever the question, the answer is "yes" (unless it's "no") -- Not everything is knowable at once -- The properties of quantum objects don't have to be contained within the objects -- There is no "spooky action at a distance" -- The everyday world is what quantum becomes at human scales -- Everything you experience is a (partial) copy of what causes it -- Schrödinger's cat has had kittens -- Quantum mechanics can be harnessed for technology -- Quantum computers don't necessarily perform "many calculations at once" -- There is no other "quantum" you -- Things could be even more "quantum" than they are (so why aren't they)? -- The fundamental laws of quantum mechanics might be simpler than we imagine -- Can we ever get to the bottom of it?
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (pages 361-371) and index.
Note:An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really meansand what it doesnt. Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience. Over the past decade its become clear that quantum physics is less a theory about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information and knowledgeabout what can be known, and how we can know it. Discoveries and experiments over the past few decades have called into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and, ultimately, of knowledge itself. The quantum world Ball shows us isnt a different world. It is our world, and if anything deserves to be called weird, it's us.
