Customer Reviews

The God Effect: Quantum Entanglement, Science's Strangest Phenomenon

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

 

 

If you are a physics major or well versed and well read on the subject this might not be the best book for you.

If you are someone interested in the subject but don't have a lot of time or brain power to get really deep into physics this is a great book for you.

Accessible, with deep yet clear examples, Clegg's book takes the reader on an interesting ride into physics, quantum entanglement and the possibilities.

I found this book to be a fun read and his explanations were direct and easily comprehendible. Most books on this subject can be dry and down right boring. This book is different in that it keeps the reader interested, educates and elucidates possibilities and ideas, and I learned a little bit about the social world of physics and the characters of that stage.

The only thing that did distract me was the title. Having nothing, or maybe everything, to do with "God", nor mentioning the phenomenon, I thought it a little off the mark. But it is a catchy title and if you let you mind wander the possibilities are definitely there.

Fun read!

Although this book has been justly criticized it remains nonetheless a serviceable examination of one of nature's most interesting phenomenon: quantum engtanglement.

Momentarily, the book's shortcomings, but first, it's strength.

Quantum entanglement is sort of the platypus of physics...so unlike the phenomenon around it that it forces us to ask essential questions about the nature of physics itself. As has been commonly discussed in other popular physics works, there are four fundamental forces of nature. Two of them operate at the macroscopic level being gravity and electromagnatism and the other two operate miscroscopically at the nuclear level being the strong and weak nuclear forces.

Significantly, each force has some type of distance limitation attached to it. So, to move a ball I have to somehow come into contact with it. Or likewise to move and electron I have to somehow sub atomicly come in to contact with it.

However, such is not the case with quantum entanglement where as Albert Einstein observed we see a "spooky action at a distance." In other words, when two particles have been mated they immedaitely assume like properties (in the case of sub atomic particles for example, a like spin or orientation). Once entangled, one has merely to effect the orientation of one partner to the mating to effect the other.

That's exactly the aspect of entanglement that made Einstein an ardent opponent of entanglement because ostensibly it seemed to violate his notions that light speed was the ultimate speed limit. Remember: in quantum entanglement effecting the orientation of one partner immediately effects the other partner. Einstein also saw as noxious the idea that this seemed to violate his notions of local action like me effecting a ball by somehow making contact with it.

While quantum entanglement is great stuff for science fiction plots, it has some basic limitations that seriously curtail its applications...all of which are discussed by Clegg. Most significantly, it's properly called a quantum effect because it is just that...something uniquely naturally peculiar to the sub atomic world. The reason is that when the mated particles are set free, their orientations can be changed by ANY examination...including those typically done by nature.

So, let's we were to recall Shroedinger's cat for another experiment (hopefully he's still alive!), and we were to want to entangle the entire cat. Our first biggest problem would be the natural interactions occuring between the cat and his environment between our attempt at entangling him and our attempt to unentangle him at the end of the process.

Significantly, this most important potential application of entanglement -- teleportation -- is touched upon by Clegg.

Also significantly, Clegg manages to cover the main entanglement issues as they exist at the time of his writing.

However, and this where his limitations show themselves. Though his book clearly has some very lucid moments and helpful discussion, it also contains some distracting segeways and inclusions of material put there perhaps most likely to pad the length of the manuscript. Also, the titling of the work as "The God Effect" seems nothing more than an attempt to create a provocative title to encourage book sales.

Even despite these limitations, the book is still on the whole well written and highly serviceable and undeniably discusses one of the most interesting phenomenon in nature. So, while this may be a good first book to read on the topic, by all means do not make it your last.

Wow. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but somehow my negative review just disappeared from this page. Perhaps the book was not selling enough. What's up with that, Amazon? I really didn't like the book and the review didn't contain anything inappropriate. In an attempt to reconstruct the review...I thought that the book lacked an audience. There was not remotely enough detail for a regular reader of popular science books. The single chapter on entanglement in Brian Greene's "Fabric of the Cosmos" was much more enlightening than this entire book. I also don't see how a beginner would get anything out of this book. Too many things were just glossed over. Despite the dearth of detail about the main topic, the author saw fit to pad it with descriptions of Cantor's work, which is covered in many other books, including one of Mr. Clegg's. When referring to the uncountability of irrationals, he refers to them as "decimal fractions" and at one point, misleadingly, as simply "fractions", which are of course rational and countable. The book is a perfect example of the trend toward small, rapidly and inexpensively produced 250-page popular science books. Mr. Clegg is not a practicing scientist. He appears to be more of an entrepreneur and this shows in the quality of the book. I think my original review might have been pulled because I mentioned that I felt cheated because I bought the book on the 5-star recommendation of a particular UK popular science website, which appears to be an objective book review site. I found out that this site, which heavily pushes Mr. Clegg's books (he is always the featured author), appears to be controlled by him. He gives all of his books very high ratings of course. This seems incredibly deceptive to me. He has recently changed "featured author" to featured author/editor", though, perhaps in response to my original review. The web site is mentioned at the front of this book. So Amazon, in pulling the one bad review for this book (I've read about 100 popular science books in the past few years) left only the good reviews, including the first few 5-star reviews which are quite obviously planted by concerned parties. This seems deceptive also. Put your money into books that are a bit more substantial and took a bit more effort to write. BTW, the title is an unoriginal ripoff of Leon Lederman's wonderful "The God Particle". Mr. Clegg's book is a mediocre book about one of the most interesting (possibly the most interesting) phenomena in science. If this book had been written by Simon Singh, it would have been a winner.

I am afraid I have to agree with Dr Mbogo. I simply mistrust the accuracy of the author's explanations. He cannot, as Dr Mbogo points out, even get right the basic notions of Cantor's treatment of infinity, repeatedly referring to numbers other than whole numbers as "fractions" - see pp. 172, 173.

INVICTUS Brisbane

Quantum physics quantum mechanics seems to be the "sexy" wing of science literature. When I got interested, I found literally dozens of titles. In such a crowded field, no surprise that not all entities are created equal. This is not a bad work, but it did not engage me very fast. I did not finish it, so take my review with a grain of salt. Look for works that are more highly rated by a lot of customers. Also, I don't like the title.

The research being done on the quantum level is fascinating and profound.
We affect the world and one another on levels we've only ready about in sci-fi
and fantasy. Now we can understand the scientific proof of how it all works.

This book does an excellent job of describing the history of the discoveries of quantum mechanics and the disputes over its implicationis. It does not consider any theological issues or the implications of quantum mechanics for theology. Having God in the title is rather misleading.

If you have ever really wondered what quantum mechanics is really all about, and you have a deep distrust of Ramtha, then this is a great little book. You can get clear explanation of some of the weirdest parts of Q and some of the most exciting.

This book had everything I want for - physics, computing, time-travel, ... but the really great thing was that these tricky quantum subjects were thoughtfully explained and each was threaded together in such a delightful way that the text simply flows - almost like reading a novel (and one you just can't put down at that).

The science is put across well (the bit on faster than light communication is first time I've understood relativity), and the uses of entanglement are excellently done. Recommended.