Customer Reviews

Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity: Metaphysical Intimations of Modern Physics, Second Edition

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It's no coincidence that those writing the clearest books in the philosophy of physics are also those doing the best work in the field. Maudlin's book is a perfect example of this. It is also remarkably self-sufficient, providing a review of special relativity, and a brief and lucid presentation of the foundations of quantum mechanics in the appendix. As a result, it should be readable by anyone with a high school education. Those already familiar with the physics and/or the issues may want to skip parts, though I should note that I found a couple hidden gems regarding things I was unfamiliar with or mistaken about even in the introductory sections.

The bulk of the book examines whether and to what extent quantum mechanics entails four superluminal phenomena often taken to be ruled out by relativity: superluminal matter transport, superluminal signaling, superluminal causation and superluminal information transfer. Maudlin convincingly argues that only the latter two of these are entailed by quantum phenomena. The book ends with an critical examination of the various theories put forward to circumvent these difficulties, and provides a brief discussion of how these issues hold up when we move to General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory.

There are many books which discuss the issue of quantum non-locality and discuss its connections to relativity theory. The vast majority of them, however, are either un-serious popular pap, or serious tomes written by professional philosophers who are at least as confused as the authors of the pap.

Maudlin's book stands out like a beacon of light in this fog of confusion and muddle-headedness. It is accessible to anyone with a basic high-school education in math and physics, yet surpasses the vast majority of technical papers on this subject in depth, clarity, and (most importantly) correctness. If you want to understand the issue of non-locality that makes some people worry so much about quantum theory and its consistency with relativity, read this book -- study this book -- and this holds whether you are a Joe Schmoe off the street or a famous Professor from (say) Boston University.

In this delightful read, Maudlin goes through an array of topics revolving around non-locality, relativity, and the mathematics involved. However, although I didn't find any "new" ideas in the text, I was amazed at how quickly & clearly he explained the said topics. Without exaggerating, in 80 pages of this book I attained what had taken me an entire stack of now useless books on quantum physics (particularly Bell's theorem), relativity, linear algebra, and philosophy(don't read Philosophy of Physics by Lange, you'll get it all out of this)

Anyone who has a prior introduction to Quantum theory will love this. I'd suggest Quantum Reality by Herbert, But there are lots of good ones out there.

This is a great book - captivating, a bit technical in places (but you can easily avoid the technical details and still understand the theses), and ultimately somewhat disturbing in the best sense of that word (it will knock away a lot of your presuppositions). Quantum non-locality (QNL) has been experimentally verified and there is no question that it exists. Particles too far apart to "communicate" at speeds less than the speed of light nonetheless do somehow "communicate". Lorentz invariance, a cornerstone of relativity, has also been well verified experimentally. Yet Einstein's philosophical underpinning of special relativity, the democracy of all reference frames, seem to be radically called into question by QNL. The author goes through every theory put forward so far to reconcile special relativity (with its philosophical underpinning intact) with QNL, and shows that none can cut the mustard. Trying to reconcile QNL with general relativity leads to even worse conundrums. Science is in a deep quandary! This book will blow your mind if you let it.

I am a theoretical physicist from Germany and I appreciated Maudlin's introduction to special relativity and quantum physics. Much of it is in words and pictures and yet it is as precise as possible, if one doesn't want to evoke the entire apparatus of equations.
However, the philosophical implications and reasonings were not only far from being clear, but also so twisted, that nobody is able to really wrap up, what Maudlin's view is. Try to find it on the internet - nowhere will you find, what his upshot is. Why is that? Because it is impossible to wrap up a philosopher in a few words? Of course not! You will find many clear and sharp results of the philosophies even of Kant, Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, who also enjoyed writing in long essays.

So what is this book about? It first tries to explain the EPR-paradoxon by considering the collapse as a physical process. Therefore you have to talk about signalling or some kind of propagation at least with a speed which is faster than light (in order to reproduce the results of A. Aspect for example).
So Maudlin analyses, which aspect of the 'information' of 'a measurement being performed' must minimally be submitted from one EPR-particle to another. He keeps analysing and approaches the problem from all kinds of sides. This is very lenghthy and repetative.

And then, suddenly, on the last 3 pages of the book: A miracle happens!
Suddenly Maudlin choses the Many Minds Interpretation, which has never before been motivated in the book!
He himself finds this a bit ad hoc and says: Well, you might feel a bit betrayed, that we now do not at all come to a conclusion which has anything to do with the rest of the book.
However, this solution suddenly seems logical to him and he choses it.
The reader stays back in bewilderment.

As I said, try to find someone, who sums up Maudlin's real conclusion of this book in a precise phrase.
You will fail.
I think, because there is none.

So after all, I would say: The book offers a good introduction to quantum physics and the EPR-problem, but it is way overrated in being innovative, brilliant or conclusive. It totally failed me in saying anything new. And don't tell me his concept of hyperplanes was new. Gordon Fleming has published this many years ago.

Maudlin's book is wonderful for someone interested in getting a concise, non-technical survey of the literature landscape of how in the world, do we reconcile the non-locality of quantum mechanics with the tenets of relativity, namely, the relativity of simultaneity.

Professor Maudlin illustrates the heart of the Bell Inequalities with a straightforward example using simple logic. It's a treat to read through, and the clearest treatment of Bell's theorem I've ever seen.

The book ends with a question mark, but in getting there, it takes us on a non-mathematical journey into the heart of the problem: At the macro level of reality, locality appears to rule, but yet, at the micro level of reality -- the realm of quantum mechanics -- non-locality rules.

Go figure?

I must admit that my criticism probably says more about me than the book, but I found it impossible to follow his arguments. His summaries of Relativity theory and Quantum mechanics were helpful and the best parts of the book. Here he explained details not covered in most of the books I've read on the subjects. If other readers found his arguments clear, I guess I'll have to chalk up my confusion to creeping senility. The book left me feeling that the revolution of the New Physics is a disaster of contradictions, vagueness, and irrationality. With the profusion of "go-for-broke" mini-theories to account for all the problems with RT and QT, I get the impression that theoretical physicists are reincarnations of Greek steam bath philosophers spouting forth untestable theories. Is this all a futile exercise in hyperplane epistemics?

This contains the clearest presentation of the evidence for non-locality that I've seen. The other chapters on the implications of this are a little more challenging but worth it.

Excellent treatise on Non-Locality and Relativity. Some Knowledge based philosophy stuff but well written.

Kudos!

Dennis