Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics [Hardcover]

Amir D. Aczel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2002

Since cyberspace became reality, the lines between "science" and "science fiction" have become increasingly blurred. Now, quantum mechanics promises that some of humanity's wildest dreams may be realized. Serious scientists, working from Einstein's theories, have been investigating the phenomenon known as "entanglement," one of the strangest aspects of our strange universe. According to Einstein, quantum mechanics required entanglement — the idea that subatomic particles could become linked, and that a change to one such particle would instantly be reflected in its counterpart, even if separated by a universe. Einstein felt that if quantum theory could produce such bizarre effects, then it had to be invalid. But new experiments show that not only does it happen, but that it may lead to unbreakable codes, and even teleportation, perhaps in our lifetime.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his newest book, Aczel (Fermat's Last Theorem) discusses a great mystery in physics: the concept of entanglement in quantum physics. He begins by explaining that "entanglement" occurs when two subatomic particles are somehow connected or "entangled" with one another, so that when something happens to one particle, the same thing simultaneously happens to the other particle, even if it's miles away. However, this concept violates the theory of special relativity, since communication between two places cannot occur faster than the speed of light. Einstein knew that the mathematics of quantum theory predicted that this could happen, but he didn't believe it. In the last decade, researchers have shown in laboratory experiments that entanglement does indeed happen, and in one case it occurred over a distance of almost 10 miles. Aczel explores how a Star Trek-like teleportation may be possible via entanglement (however, a particle's quantum state, not the entire particle, is teleported to its mate), though perhaps at the expense of demonstrating entanglement's more real-world applications to cryptography. General readers may need to skim over his technical explanations, whereas more advanced readers will be interested in only the last third of the book. While the book won't satisfy dedicated science buffs, it will be an accessible entry into this concept of quantum physics.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

"Entanglement" is one of the more remarkable aspects of quantum mechanics, a field that has produced a number of counterintuitive phenomena. Entangled particles are created in the same process and retain a connection even if they become far separated physically. If a change is later imposed on one of these particles, then there instantaneously occurs a change with its entangled partner, even if that partner is very far away in another part of the universe. Thus, the news of the change is transmitted with infinite velocity by an unknown means. Einstein aptly referred to this phenomenon as "spooky." In recent decades, researchers have shown entanglement to be a physical fact, thereby vindicating quantum mechanics, spooky though it may be. Aczel (Fermat's Last Theorem) tells most of this story at a pace that is slow enough and understandable for lay readers, but the last few chapters are more technical. Some sections read awkwardly and would have benefited from better editing, but on the whole this is recommended for college and large public libraries.
Jack W. Weigel, Ann Arbor, MI
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (October 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568582323
• ISBN-13: 978-1568582320
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #812,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Amir D. Aczel, Ph.D., is the author of 17 books on mathematics and science, some of which have been international bestsellers. Aczel has taught mathematics, statistics, and history of science at various universities, and was a visiting scholar at Harvard in 2005-2007. In 2004, Aczel was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is also the recipient of several teaching awards, and a grant from the American Institute of Physics to support the writing of two of his books. Aczel is currently a research fellow in the history of science at Boston University. The photo shows Amir D. Aczel inside the CMS detector of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the international laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, while there to research his new book, "Present at the Creation: The Story of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider"--which is about the search for the mysterious Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle," dark matter, dark energy, the mystery of antimatter, Supersymmetry, and hidden dimensions of spacetime.
See Amir D. Aczel's webpage: http://amirdaczel.com
Video on CERN and the Large Hadron Collider: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ncx8TE2JMo

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Biography, not science, December 16, 2002

By 

"gearbert" (Cupertino, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics (Hardcover)

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.

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At the Edge of Physics and Philosophy, September 29, 2002

By 

Theodore R. Spickler (Beaver Falls, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics (Hardcover)

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.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Quantum Reality Einstein Could Not Suppose, November 2, 2003

By 

Tatsuo Tabata "tttabata" (Sakai, Osaka Japan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics (Hardcover)

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.