Quantum theory is so shocking that Einstein could not bring himself to accept it. It is so important that it provides the fundamental underpinning of all modern sciences. Without it, we'd have no nuclear power or nuclear weapons, no TV, no computers, no science of molecular biology, no understanding of DNA, no genetic engineering. In Search of Schrodinger's Cat tells the complete story of quantum mechanics, a truth stranger than any fiction. John Gribbin takes us step by step into an ever more bizarre and fascinating place, requiring only that we approach it with an open mind. He introduces the scientists who developed quantum theory. He investigates the atom, radiation, time travel, the birth of the universe, superconductors and life itself. And in a world full of its own delights, mysteries and surprises, he searches for Schrodinger's Cat - a search for quantum reality - as he brings every reader to a clear understanding of the most important area of scientific study today - quantum physics. In Search of Schrodinger's Cat is a fascinating and delightful introduction to the strange world of the quantum - an essential element in understanding today's world.
In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantam Physics And Reality
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Part history book and part remedial physics text for those who lost interest when the equations started getting unintuitive, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat explains quantum physics in a way that's not only clear, but also enjoyable.
Gribbin opens with the subjects that most physics professors have just started to examine at the end of the semester: The mysterious character of light, the valence concept in Nils Bohr's atomic model, radioactive decay, and the physics of life-defining DNA all get clear, comprehensive, and witty coverage. This book reveals the beauty and mystery that underlies everything in the universe.
Does this book claim to explain quantum physics without math? No. Math is too central to physics to be bypassed. But if you can do basic algebra, you can understand the equations in In Search of Schrödinger's Cat. Gribbin is the physics teacher everyone should have in high school or college: kind without being a pushover, knowledgeable without being condescending, and clearly expressive without being boring. Gribbin's book belongs on the shelf of every pre-calculus student. It also deserves a place in the library of everyone who was scared away from advanced physics prematurely.
Review
"A gripping account of the history of quantum mechanics and a clear description of its significance - and weirdness. Absolutely fascinating" -- Isaac Asimov "Precise yet mysterious... as beautiful as a poem and as exciting as a novel" The Sunday Times "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it" -- Niels Bohr
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
114 of 120 people found the following review helpful
By terrance005
Format:Paperback
PROS:
1. Good narrative style - you won't be bored.
2. Not complicated... not trivial or overly diluted either. High school Math, and Science will suffice for understanding. You'll derive more on a second read though.
3. I like how he weaves history into science and adds personality to the characters way beyond anything you'll find in a textbook. One reader said he wanted just the facts and could do without the extras. I think it's the extras that make this book appealing, approachable and engaging. If you want just facts, get a college textbook.
4. Not too long... he spends just about the right length of time on each topic.
5. He revisits topics to shed extra light at appropriate times... he doesn't try to hammer in everything into your head all at once.
6. Gives credit to respective scientists, including stating who won what Nobel prize when. This is good as otherwise these people and their achievements would be largely unknown by people who are not academics, such as some of the readers of this book.
7. Gives an excellent sense of perspective of how things were developed or arrived at. You really appreciate that it is by collaboration and assistance that a lot has been developed. Previous to this work I hadn't heard of Dirac... everybody knows Einstein. I heard of Bohr, Rutherford, and Planck at school. But there really are other greats of the era: Heisenberg, Dirac, Pauli and Shrodinger for example.
8. Extremely well-researched and woven together.
9. Great to find out the simple origins of anti-matter. (pages 124, and 125)
10. Great to see how many things we take for granted have been derived from Quantum Mechanics... Integrated circuits, computers, laser, laser surgery, nuclear reactors, rockets, space travel.
CONS:
1. He presents the work of the main characters/scientists in a TOPICAL fashion, and when you are reading you would realise that something that occurs some pages later on actually took place at the same time CHRONOLOGICALLY as something in prevous sections. This is moderately disconcerting.
I don't think the author could have done differently though, without disrupting the flow of the book and perhaps altering its comprehensibility. To compensate for this, it would have been good to put a timeline in an Appendix. e.g.:
16xx - Newton lays the groundwork of classical mechanics (based on the work of Kepler)
1900 - Planck introduces his radiation formula and introduces 'quanta' of energy.
1906 - Einstein...
etc.
2. Needs to state EXACTLY which diagram/drawing he is referring to at various points in the explanation. It's easy to lose track of what diagram he is referring to, and it becomes confusing. (This applies mainly to the latter half of the book.)
1. Good narrative style - you won't be bored.
2. Not complicated... not trivial or overly diluted either. High school Math, and Science will suffice for understanding. You'll derive more on a second read though.
3. I like how he weaves history into science and adds personality to the characters way beyond anything you'll find in a textbook. One reader said he wanted just the facts and could do without the extras. I think it's the extras that make this book appealing, approachable and engaging. If you want just facts, get a college textbook.
4. Not too long... he spends just about the right length of time on each topic.
5. He revisits topics to shed extra light at appropriate times... he doesn't try to hammer in everything into your head all at once.
6. Gives credit to respective scientists, including stating who won what Nobel prize when. This is good as otherwise these people and their achievements would be largely unknown by people who are not academics, such as some of the readers of this book.
7. Gives an excellent sense of perspective of how things were developed or arrived at. You really appreciate that it is by collaboration and assistance that a lot has been developed. Previous to this work I hadn't heard of Dirac... everybody knows Einstein. I heard of Bohr, Rutherford, and Planck at school. But there really are other greats of the era: Heisenberg, Dirac, Pauli and Shrodinger for example.
8. Extremely well-researched and woven together.
9. Great to find out the simple origins of anti-matter. (pages 124, and 125)
10. Great to see how many things we take for granted have been derived from Quantum Mechanics... Integrated circuits, computers, laser, laser surgery, nuclear reactors, rockets, space travel.
CONS:
1. He presents the work of the main characters/scientists in a TOPICAL fashion, and when you are reading you would realise that something that occurs some pages later on actually took place at the same time CHRONOLOGICALLY as something in prevous sections. This is moderately disconcerting.
I don't think the author could have done differently though, without disrupting the flow of the book and perhaps altering its comprehensibility. To compensate for this, it would have been good to put a timeline in an Appendix. e.g.:
16xx - Newton lays the groundwork of classical mechanics (based on the work of Kepler)
1900 - Planck introduces his radiation formula and introduces 'quanta' of energy.
1906 - Einstein...
etc.
2. Needs to state EXACTLY which diagram/drawing he is referring to at various points in the explanation. It's easy to lose track of what diagram he is referring to, and it becomes confusing. (This applies mainly to the latter half of the book.)
46 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a wonderful book that deals with a rather fascinating subject: quantum mecahnics. For those who may not be familiar w/QM, it is the physics of the microcosmic world of electrons, photons, protons & neutrons. It is where Newtonian causality breaks down, where there appears a "totally new ballgame." Gribbin does an excellent job of writing for the layman, especially considering the recondite nature of the topic. However, I would recommend anyone interested in QM to read Alice In Quantumland by Robert Gilmore first as it is slightly more accessible & also has the advantage of being "fun" to read (it is told as an allegorized story). Note that I still recommend Gribbin's book, but AFTER one has read Gilmore's. It may help to make Gribbin's book make a bit more sense. All in all, though, this is an enlightening work.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I wrote this review before reading the sequel to this book (Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality). After reading the sequel I have an additional comment, which is included at the end of the review.
This book rests somewhere between being a history book and a popular science physics text that focuses on the underlying implications of quantum theory. It introduces the history of the development of quantum mechanics and develops this physics in a general, non-mathematical, manner. In my opinion, Gribbin does a fine job in both areas. The book is very readable and very informative. It begins with the particle/wave nature of light and how attempts to explain this paradox formed the basis of modern scientific thought. From this, Gribbin introduces the notion that matter (initially electrons) also exhibit wave as well as particle characteristics. This is then used to describe Bohr's initial attempts at describing the nature of the atom. Gribbin shows how the Heisenberg uncertainty principle grew naturally out of attempts to explain the nature of an atom, as depicted by the splitting of spectral lines. The uncertainty principle is often incorrectly depicted as just an adjunct to quantum theory, not as its central idea. Gribbin shows that it is intimately tied up with the particle/wave paradox and that it is not (as it is often portrayed) just an experimental limitation. (He also shows that Heisenberg himself is responsible for this misconception because he used this analogy to try to explain the concept.)
The hardcover version of this book was published in 1984, so one could justly question reading a book that is over 20 years old. This is, however, not a reason skip this book, as the first half is concerned with the development of quantum theory up to the late 1920's. By this time, many of the basic ideas had been developed into a cohesive theory and since this is a history of this development, the fact that the book is over 20 years old is not a problem. Gribbin does a good job of introducing the many strange paradoxes and irrational (at least in terms of classical physics and human expectations) experimental results upon which the theory is based. Gribbin is, however, on much less firm ground in the second half of the book, which is concerned with the strange concepts of reality (or really un-reality) that the theory implies. As strange as they are (especially to elimination of causality at a quantum level and its replacement with probabilities) they are based upon experimental facts, not philosophical ramblings. Much of the theories presented in this part of the book were in their formative stages at the time the book was written and much has changed since 1983, but from a historical perspective this portion of the book is also useful. Likewise, the interpretations of quantum mechanics developed in the 1920's should be viewed from a historical context, having been modified before and after 1984.
Most importantly, this book delves into the strange implications of quantum theory. Strange is not an adequate word to explain these implications. When Alice went down the rabbit hole she encountered a world that was ordinary and rational compared to the shocking world depicted (and verified by experimental observations) by quantum theory. In the last part of the book Gribbin delves into a universe of ghost particles, collapsing quantum wave functions, "spooky action at a distance" (Einstein's criticism of where quantum theory was leading) and multi-universe interpretations. These theories question our very notion of reality.
Gribbin has given me a feel for how much I never dreamt of when I was studying quantum mechanics (or at least the simplified version that was taught to engineers like myself). I now see that I was never very shocked by quantum mechanics because I never understood its true ramifications. I was taught what Gribbin calls quantum cooking, in other words how to follow a recipe in order solve an exam problem and hopefully, eventually, make something useful, without knowing the true implications of quantum theory. This book aims to remedy this in a general, non-mathematical manner.
I highly recommend this book not only to anyone studying quantum mechanics (especially if they read it before they start the course), but also to those who are better versed in this field. It should help a little bit to turn one from a quantum cook, into a quantum chef (i.e. one who knows more than just how to follow a recipe). At least it should get the reader thinking about the strange universe described by quantum theory.
This book relies heavily on the "Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum theory developed by Niels Bohr in the 1920's. While other interpretations are discussed, this book gives the impression that this is still a favored interpretation of the meaning behind quantum theory. It certainly was a very popular view at the time that the book was written, in spite of the fact that it implies that nothing actually exists until a higher intelligence looks at it. Einstein never accepted this and while this view is questioned in this book, these questions are not given center stage. In contrast, the sequel to this book (Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality) spends more time focusing on these other interpretations. That these other interpretations are only made more prominent in the sequel is a bit surprising since most were well formulated before this initial book was written. I believe that it is thus necessary to also read the sequel in order to get a better feeling for the strange implications of quantum theory. Another book which sheds more light on this subject is Feynman's QED, which provides general information about the path integral method, which avoids the paradoxes because it avoids assuming that light (and electrons) are waves as well as particles. The lack of any significant discussion of these other interpretations made me reduce the rating to 4 stars.
This book rests somewhere between being a history book and a popular science physics text that focuses on the underlying implications of quantum theory. It introduces the history of the development of quantum mechanics and develops this physics in a general, non-mathematical, manner. In my opinion, Gribbin does a fine job in both areas. The book is very readable and very informative. It begins with the particle/wave nature of light and how attempts to explain this paradox formed the basis of modern scientific thought. From this, Gribbin introduces the notion that matter (initially electrons) also exhibit wave as well as particle characteristics. This is then used to describe Bohr's initial attempts at describing the nature of the atom. Gribbin shows how the Heisenberg uncertainty principle grew naturally out of attempts to explain the nature of an atom, as depicted by the splitting of spectral lines. The uncertainty principle is often incorrectly depicted as just an adjunct to quantum theory, not as its central idea. Gribbin shows that it is intimately tied up with the particle/wave paradox and that it is not (as it is often portrayed) just an experimental limitation. (He also shows that Heisenberg himself is responsible for this misconception because he used this analogy to try to explain the concept.)
The hardcover version of this book was published in 1984, so one could justly question reading a book that is over 20 years old. This is, however, not a reason skip this book, as the first half is concerned with the development of quantum theory up to the late 1920's. By this time, many of the basic ideas had been developed into a cohesive theory and since this is a history of this development, the fact that the book is over 20 years old is not a problem. Gribbin does a good job of introducing the many strange paradoxes and irrational (at least in terms of classical physics and human expectations) experimental results upon which the theory is based. Gribbin is, however, on much less firm ground in the second half of the book, which is concerned with the strange concepts of reality (or really un-reality) that the theory implies. As strange as they are (especially to elimination of causality at a quantum level and its replacement with probabilities) they are based upon experimental facts, not philosophical ramblings. Much of the theories presented in this part of the book were in their formative stages at the time the book was written and much has changed since 1983, but from a historical perspective this portion of the book is also useful. Likewise, the interpretations of quantum mechanics developed in the 1920's should be viewed from a historical context, having been modified before and after 1984.
Most importantly, this book delves into the strange implications of quantum theory. Strange is not an adequate word to explain these implications. When Alice went down the rabbit hole she encountered a world that was ordinary and rational compared to the shocking world depicted (and verified by experimental observations) by quantum theory. In the last part of the book Gribbin delves into a universe of ghost particles, collapsing quantum wave functions, "spooky action at a distance" (Einstein's criticism of where quantum theory was leading) and multi-universe interpretations. These theories question our very notion of reality.
Gribbin has given me a feel for how much I never dreamt of when I was studying quantum mechanics (or at least the simplified version that was taught to engineers like myself). I now see that I was never very shocked by quantum mechanics because I never understood its true ramifications. I was taught what Gribbin calls quantum cooking, in other words how to follow a recipe in order solve an exam problem and hopefully, eventually, make something useful, without knowing the true implications of quantum theory. This book aims to remedy this in a general, non-mathematical manner.
I highly recommend this book not only to anyone studying quantum mechanics (especially if they read it before they start the course), but also to those who are better versed in this field. It should help a little bit to turn one from a quantum cook, into a quantum chef (i.e. one who knows more than just how to follow a recipe). At least it should get the reader thinking about the strange universe described by quantum theory.
This book relies heavily on the "Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum theory developed by Niels Bohr in the 1920's. While other interpretations are discussed, this book gives the impression that this is still a favored interpretation of the meaning behind quantum theory. It certainly was a very popular view at the time that the book was written, in spite of the fact that it implies that nothing actually exists until a higher intelligence looks at it. Einstein never accepted this and while this view is questioned in this book, these questions are not given center stage. In contrast, the sequel to this book (Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality) spends more time focusing on these other interpretations. That these other interpretations are only made more prominent in the sequel is a bit surprising since most were well formulated before this initial book was written. I believe that it is thus necessary to also read the sequel in order to get a better feeling for the strange implications of quantum theory. Another book which sheds more light on this subject is Feynman's QED, which provides general information about the path integral method, which avoids the paradoxes because it avoids assuming that light (and electrons) are waves as well as particles. The lack of any significant discussion of these other interpretations made me reduce the rating to 4 stars.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important to understand....
Very helpful slant...clear, understandable and pleasant to read. For the non scientist who needs to know and understand the direction of either huge revelations or yet more... Read more
Published 4 days ago by Leslie Schaefer
4.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a "keeper."
At age 81, I've given away most of my once cherished books. I do so when I look at a book on my shelf and decide I will never again want to read it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by John Burgeson
5.0 out of 5 stars
A well written book, easy enough for the layman and scientific enough...
I have had this book since it was first published in 1984. I have read it half a dozen times and always find something new in it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by AussieHiker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and informative
Extremely readable, and informative overview of the history of Quantum Mechanics. Good mix of science and history makes it easier to digest both!
Published 2 months ago by Joshua Wulf
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mind melding
Really enjoyed delving into the theory and concepts. Lacking background, I did get lost with some of the language and concepts.
Published 2 months ago by Patty Hayes
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Intro to the World of Quantum Physics
I actually bought this book, while I was waiting at the airport for my flight. I'm glad I bought it. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jonathan Kim
5.0 out of 5 stars
a classic book in quantum
Quantum physics is difficult at best .but when you honestly understand it ,its worse than you think . Read more
Published 2 months ago by Alan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quantum is not equal to hard
One of the greater difficulties that a scientist, teacher or scientific writer has is to explain to a common person in simple words the theories and the findings of the modern... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ernesto Martínez
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great gift!
My brother loves the idea of fractals and a discussion of quantum physics and reality fit into that spectrum too.
Published 4 months ago by Katy Philp
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good
It was a very good purchase. It had lots of information that i could understand, and i'm not a physicist, i'm a high school student.
Published 7 months ago by ldgardell
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 43
books:
See all 43 books this book cites
- The Tao Of Physics (3rd Edition-Updated) by Fritjof Capra on 4 pages
- The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (25th Anniversary Edition) by Fritjof Capra on 4 pages
- Directions in Physics by P. A. M. Dirac on 4 pages
- The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics (History of Modern Physics, 1800-1950) by Max Jammer on page 52, page 86, and Back Matter
- The Theory of Relativity: & Other Essays by Einstein on page 48, page 64, and page 83
See all 43 books this book cites
