Customer Reviews

Entanglement

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

If you buy this book hoping to get some insight into how entangled particles can be actually be created, what you can do with them and the truly bizarre and counterintuitive behavior that they exhibit, then this is NOT the book for you. On the other hand, if you're after a well-researched biography of the pioneers (and current players) in quantum physics, with personal backgrounds and amusing anecdotes, and running light on actual science, then Mr. Aczel has created a generally well-written account that you may enjoy. This book would probably be appreciated more by someone with an interest in physics but from perhaps a more "social" point of view. My problems with "Entanglement" stemmed mostly from Mr. Aczel's glossing over the actual science and experiments, and focusing on the experimenters, which left me feeling frustrated. When there are technical figures, they aren't well-described and sometimes it seems as though he's talking about things that aren't even in the figures, which I found confusing. But mostly he doesn't really manage to convey the sense of impossibility that begins to emerge in the lab as the physicists begin to design and perform experiments that Einstein thought could never be done. I've followed the work in entangled particles in the lay press (mostly Scientific American) and was hoping for something of about that level, but with the cohesiveness and richness that a book's-length format can provide. I was disappointed.

This is a story about the search for a deeper understanding of what Quantum Mechanics really means. The book is tantalizing but a bit frustrating because we don't known what quantum theory actually means. I particularly appreciated the opportunity to get to know a little about the key players in this search, it adds a human touch and offers a feel for what it must be like to be at the frontiers of quantum theory research. Aczel skims the surface of the material because he must avoid plunging into the mathematics needed to fully appreciate the details. I suggest the reader have some previous experience reading and thinking about quantum theory ("The Cosmic Code" by H. Pagels is particularly recommended). Aczel spends the first half of his book with introductory material however in places this effort might need more elaboration for someone trying to enter this bizarre topic for the first time. This book is probably one of the very few places where a reader of popularizations in physics can explore the latest ramifications of quantum entanglement. Aczel spent considerable time interviewing the key physicists and probably got the science right. We recognize his total involvement with the content and appreciate the care with which the ideas are presented. I rated this book 5 stars because it was so thrilling and left me with a wish that I could be there with the investigators. This is an ongoing story and I didn't want it to end! It will certainly bend your brain and leave you wondering about what reality actually is! The bibliography is useful for anyone wishing to dig into the territory deeper.

In 1935 Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky raised a serious criticism of quantum theory in the form of a paradox. The criticism meant that quantum theory brings about a "spooky action at distance" or "entanglement" between quantum subsystems. Two photons generated at a point with a correlation, for example, continue to have the correlation even after they are separated by a great distance, and a change in the state of one of them affects the other instantaneously. In 1964 John Bell proposed a mathematical theorem experimentally to test the existence of entanglement. Alain Aspect carried out such an experiment in 1982 to show that entanglement is a reality.

Even one of the greatest physicists in history, Albert Einstein, could not suppose that entanglement would be a reality. So it must be quite difficult to make ordinary person understand it. Amir Aczel tried to do this difficult task in this book, but he does not seem to have well succeeded. Just half of a total of 20 chapters is spent to describe the history of quantum mechanics, though a short mention about entanglement appears at a few places. Thus the reader who learned quantum mechanics to some extent at least would find the first half of the book rather tedious. From the story of debate between Einstein and Bohr in chapter 11, the book becomes interesting. However, the author explains neither Bell's theorem nor the details of many experiments understandably. On the final page, the author reveals the reason of difficulty in understanding entanglement writing, "... the quantum theory does not tell us why things happen the way they do; why are the particles entangled?" Was our expectation to the author too big?

A good point of the book is that it includes biographical descriptions of a lot of physicists related to quantum theory and entanglement. I have learned for the first time that Thomas Young, famous for the double slit experiment, was a child prodigy. Schrödinger's anecdotal "entanglement" with women are also told. A bad point is that writing and printing are made rather carelessly. For example, von Neumann's proof of the non-existence of hidden variable in quantum mechanics and John Bell's later challenge to Neumann's assumption are repeatedly described on pages 101 and 102. There are many typos, and especially the contents of pages 234 and 235 should be interchanged. This error, combined with sudden appearance of the description of Borromean rings on page 232, makes the reader confused around these pages.

Einstein's did not believe that Universe may be changing or expanding, despite the fact, that his equations of GR were telling him opposite. He introduced Cosmological Constant in order to boost his believes. He was not right, but since 1998 his constant has become a Lambda force, the most important constant of the Nature and in cosmology science.
Einstein's skepticism surfaced again in 1935, when he questioned quantum theory, the one he contributed to immensely by describing the "photoelectric effect".
Einstein was calling quantum theory "incomplete" according to his notions of realism and locality. What experiments and knowledge has been developed later, we can learn reading Amir Aczel book. Will "entanglement" phenomena become as important for modern quantum science as Lambda force for today's cosmology? We do not know it at this time. Essentially Amir Aczel's book describes CERN theorist John Bell's theorem (1966) as a tool for probing certain unknown quantum properties. I believe this book could have been written better. First 122 pages elegantly presents history of classic quantum physics from Young to famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen's paper. Classic quantum formulas are introduced with a sense of measure. However the Copenhagen Interpretation of the quantum theory is barely mentioned and explained. Later book gets less clear. Many experiments have been performed around the world in order to prove that Einstein was wrong, but pictures of difficult instrumentations often lack of proper connectivity with text and adequate explanations.
More about entangled states and quantum information can be found in Scientific American magazine (November 2002).

Before tackling this book, I had read some of Dr. Aczel's other works, such as The Mystery of the Aleph and Fermat's Last Theorem. I found those books quite enjoyable, so when I heard that he had published a new book on quantum entanglement, I could hardly wait to grab a copy.

After reading it through, I must say I am sorely disappointed to the work. I am still somewhat unclear as to what exactly entanglement is in any depth. His explanations, which are repeated at least a dozen times to no effect, are poor and left me confused. Diagrams are peppered throughout the book with no explanation or captions, leaving one to think that they're there just for eye-candy. Typos abound in the book and some pages are misnumbered (pages 232-4 especially). The book goes on and on about John Bell's famous theorem, but I am still confused as to what this theorem was and why we should care about it. In fact, the practical effects of entanglement aren't even gotten to until practically the last chapter -- the entire rest of the book is simply a biography on those who are or were working on entanglement.

Overall a terribly written book from an author whom I know can do much better. I am left confused as to the very subject matter the book purports to explain. Save your money on this one.

This book should have been titled "Alice in the Quantum Wonderland." Aczel brings the amazing world of the quantum to within the reach of any reader with interest in science. This was really a page-turner. The author describes the latest developments in physics, and the bizarre behavior of photons and electrons in this strange world. He makes you wonder whether people, too, like his characters, are entangled. This is one of the best science books I've read this year.

I was really excited about reading this book when I first bought it and really disappointed when I finished. As mentioned by an earlier reviewer, the biographical information is very interesting, but the physics stinks. I found the technical explanations incomplete and difficult to follow.

In addition, the book was written as if the author was in a hurry to meet a deadline. There was a lot of repetition, several editing errors, and the illustrations seemed to be thrown in just to take up space.

For a much better explanation of this mind-blowing topic, I recommend John Gribbin's "Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality." Gribbin does his usual excellent job of explaining thing simply enough so you understand what he's saying without needing a Ph.D. in physics. The final chapter of this book wraps everything up with Gribbin's preferred explanation of entanglement and quantum reality. After you read it, you'll be saying to yourself, "Hey, cool!"

How can an accomplished author botch a book on a 5 star topic (the development of quantum entanglement) by producing a 1 star effort?

Aczel retains one star for tracking down and interviewing many of the current physicists in the field, doing a service by humanizing a technical topic.

Deduct a star for Azcel's incomprehensible explanations of quantum theory concepts. We would have been better served by more direct quotes from Azcel's interviews and the considerable literature generated by these same principals.

Deduct another star for the misguided, repetitive use of "entanglement" puns, as in repeatedly describing research teams as becoming entangled in their mutual efforts.
Once, maybe.
Several times? Arrrrgh!

The most serious betrayal costs a deduction of 2 points for promising in the preface (and failing to deliver) meaningful, authentic diagrams to illustrate the text. It is the rule, rather than the exception, that the diagram does not quite match the text description or worse, seems to be entirely tangential to any point being made. The diagrams typically distract from the text by offering LESS information than the surrounding prose.

If you are not put off by the flaws in the delivery, I do recommend reading the book for the interviews with those who have done the work in the field.

As a physics buff I had high hopes for this book. The subject has always fascinated me. Sadly this book is a mess. The author has no ability to communicate clearly. This book is more of an historical account than anything else. Who cares where a scientist is born and how he grew up. There are numerious un-explained cryptic diagrams. When the author does explain an experiment it's a confused jumble. Don't let the intrigue of this subject trap you into reading this very poorly written book.
You will end up more confused and frustrated then enlightened.

There must be some eggheads who understand quantum physics. For the rest of us who live in a Newtonian world, all sorts of weird things happen at the atomic scale, things that are too weird ever to be explained. A photon, the basic particle of light, when fired at a screen with two holes in it goes through both holes at once. Not only that, the photon particle isn't a particle at all, but a strange amalgam of particle and wave. A quantum entity can not only be two places at once, it can have two opposite characteristics at once (like opposite directions of spin), and it only settles on one of those characteristics when you look at it closely. Einstein had imbued the universe with his own share of weirdness related to speed of light travel, but he could never accept the weirdness of quantum theory. As physicist David Greenberger remarked, "Einstein said that if quantum mechanics was correct then the world would be crazy. Einstein was right - the world is crazy." Crazy or not, quantum theory has turned out to be correct, experimentally demonstrated over and over again in the last decades, and if we aren't going ever to get used to it, we might try to get to know it better nonetheless. At the heart of quantum physics is the mysterious phenomenon of entanglement, and in _Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics_ (Four Walls Eight Windows), Amir D. Aczel has valiantly attempted to make the phenomenon plain, and has had good success.

Entanglement is one of those quantum happenings that doesn't make any sense. It involves an instantaneous change in a particle once there is a change in a another particle with which it is entangled. The change is instantaneous, and would be even if the particles were on different sides of the solar system, or even of the universe. Somehow one particle "knows" that the other is changing, but this is not information that is transmitted one to the other. If it were information, it could not travel faster than the speed of light, but the change happens at exactly the same time. Einstein mistrusted the idea, calling it "spooky action at a distance." He would have been amazed that such a thing was not just theoretical, but experimentally proven, and much of this book is the history of how such a experiments came to be. The considerable physics in the book is lightened by anecdotes about the scientists involved. Along with the anecdotes are vignettes of model cooperation between scientists helping each other try to understand, even if their views were in opposition. Entanglement has a colorful history, well told here.

_Entanglement_ ends with a description of some practical applications; this is not just empty theorizing. Teleportation, the dream of science fiction, if it ever occurs, will be done by transferring quantum states of one particle to another. More immediately, using entangled photons as a means of sending an encoded message can reveal if anyone has tried to listen to the message. And quantum computing may change our ideas of the limitations of what computers can do. I predict that I, along with most people in my generation, will continue to see the world in Newtonian terms, but as future generations start using the ideas which are shown in this engaging and challenging history, perhaps they will find quantum mechanics a little less weird.