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How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival First Edition

4.3 out of 5 stars 147

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Named one of the Top Physics Books of 2012 by Physics World

The surprising story of eccentric young scientists who stood up to convention―and changed the face of modern physics.

Today, quantum information theory is among the most exciting scientific frontiers, attracting billions of dollars in funding and thousands of talented researchers. But as MIT physicist and historian David Kaiser reveals, this cutting-edge field has a surprisingly psychedelic past. How the Hippies Saved Physics introduces us to a band of freewheeling physicists who defied the imperative to “shut up and calculate” and helped to rejuvenate modern physics.

For physicists, the 1970s were a time of stagnation. Jobs became scarce, and conformity was encouraged, sometimes stifling exploration of the mysteries of the physical world. Dissatisfied, underemployed, and eternally curious, an eccentric group of physicists in Berkeley, California, banded together to throw off the constraints of the physics mainstream and explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the “Fundamental Fysiks Group,” they pursued an audacious, speculative approach to physics. They studied quantum entanglement and Bell’s Theorem through the lens of Eastern mysticism and psychic mind-reading, discussing the latest research while lounging in hot tubs. Some even dabbled with LSD to enhance their creativity. Unlikely as it may seem, these iconoclasts spun modern physics in a new direction, forcing mainstream physicists to pay attention to the strange but exciting underpinnings of quantum theory.

A lively, entertaining story that illuminates the relationship between creativity and scientific progress,
How the Hippies Saved Physics takes us to a time when only the unlikeliest heroes could break the science world out of its rut. 46 black-and-white illustrations

Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Starred Review. An enthusiastic account of a coterie of physicists who, during the 1970s, embraced New Age fads and sometimes went on to make dramatic discoveries…Readers will enjoy this entertaining chronicle of colorful young scientists whose sweeping curiosity turned up no hard evidence for psychic phenomena but led to new ways of looking into the equally bizarre quantum world."
Kirkus Reviews

"Starred Review. Science has never been more unpredictable―or more entertaining!"
Booklist

"It is hard to write a book about quantum mechanics that is at once intellectually serious and a page-turner. But David Kaiser succeeds in his account of a neglected but important group of physicists who brought together quantum mechanics, Eastern religion, parapsychology and the hallucinogen LSD. … Illuminating."
Hugh Gusterson, Nature

"Exhaustively and carefully researched. [Kaiser] has uncovered a wealth of revealing detail about the physicists involved, making for a very lively tale. … Fascinating."
American Scientist

"This entertaining, worthwhile read is as much about the nature of society at the dawn of the New Age as it is about quantum physics."
Choice

"Kaiser’s style is engaging, which makes this history of the time when physics left the short-sleeved white shirts, skinny ties and plastic pocket protectors behind one of the best science books of the year."
Sacramento News & Review

"Meticulously researched and unapologetically romantic,
How the Hippies Saved Physics makes the history of science fun again."
Matthew Wisnioski, Science

"
How the Hippies Saved Physics takes readers on a mind-bending trip to the far horizons of science―a place where the counterculture’s search for a New Age of consciousness opened the door to a new era in physics. Who knew that the discipline that brought us the atom bomb had also glimpsed Utopia? Amazing."
Fred Turner, author of From Counterculture to Cyberculture

From the Back Cover

Advance Praise for How the Hippies Saved Physics:

“This book takes us deep into the kaleidoscopic culture of the 1970s―with its pop-metaphysicians, dabblers in Eastern mysticism, and counterculture gurus―some of whom, it turns out, were also physicists seeking to challenge the foundations of their discipline. In David Kaiser’s hands, the story of how they succeeded―albeit in ways they never intended―makes a tremendously fun and eye-opening tale. As the physicist I. I. Rabi once remarked: ‘What [more] do you want, mermaids?’”―Ken Alder, author of
The Measure of All Things and The Lie Detectors

“At first it sounds impossible, then like the opening line of a joke: What do the CIA, Werner Erhard’s EST, Bay Area hippie explorations, and the legacy of Einstein, Heisenberg, and Schroedinger have in common? It turns out, as David Kaiser shows, quite a lot. Here is a book that is immensely fun to read, gives insight into deep and increasingly consequential questions of physics, and transports the reader back into the heart of North Beach zaniness in the long 1960s. Put down your calculators and pick up this book!”―Peter Galison, author of
Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps

“What happens when you mix the foundations of quantum mechanics with hot tubs, ESP, saffron robes, and psychedelic drugs?
How the Hippies Saved Physics chronicles the wild years of the 1970s when a group of largely unemployed physicists teamed up with LSD advocate Timothy Leary, EST founder Werner Erhard, telekinesist Uri Geller, and a host of other countercultural figures to mount a full-scale assault on physics orthodoxy. David Kaiser’s masterly ability to explain the most subtle and counterintuitive quantum effects, together with his ability to spin a ripping good yarn, make him the perfect guide to this far-off and far-out era of scientific wackiness.”―Seth Lloyd, author of Programming the Universe

“David Kaiser shows us the wonder, mystery, and joy of the scientific pursuit that helped define, and inspire, a particular moment within the counterculture. Some have seen and long appreciated these resonances, but no one has stated the case this authoritatively, this fully, and this colorfully, particularly from the science side of things. Clearly, this book signals, like the entangled photons with which it begins and ends, a fantastic new world of possibilities―historical, human, and scientific.”―Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of
Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0393076369
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (June 27, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780393076363
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393076363
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.57 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.3 x 9.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 147

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David Kaiser
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David Kaiser is the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of several books, including 'How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival,' and 'Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World.' His work has appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine, and he is a frequent guest on NPR and in PBS NOVA documentaries.

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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2011
Critics of this book have focused on physics per se, ignoring the social environment in which its theoreticians and experimentalists dwell. As sociologist historians of science have thoroughly presented, physics does not occur in isolation, either from society and its politics or from other scientific and scholarly disciplines. While the author presents some of the physical puzzles and the proponents of various explanations as the meat of the book, he also furthers an underlying theme that other reviewers elected to ignore or demean. This book is not a reductionistic history of recent physics and should not be judged as such. As a Berkeley first-wave academic hippie myself during the era examined [tuned it, turned on, but never dropped out], I was especially interested in whether physicists 'up the hill' at Lawrence Laboratories were influenced by the counter-culture, with its sundry interdisciplinary probes in holistic fields, consciousness-mind, and alternative perspectives of existence [which soon beget the renaissance in environmentalism and ecological studies (even in medicine); cognitive psychology and neuroscience; self-organization in biology and chemistry; psychoneuroimmunology and the placebo effect; and noetic phenomena of remote-viewing, precognition, and information fields]. New Physics experiments and their resulting philosophical interpretations, popularized by the subjects of this book, would soon indirectly support research in other disciplines. [Indeed, following the wake of Arthur Young's Institute for the Study of Consciousness (1972) and the establishment of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (1973), the interdisciplinary Journal of Consciousness Studies (not be be confused with Young's Journal for the Study of Consciousness) would commence in 1990 in conjunction with international conferences of consciousness within science.] Were these New Physicists walking a two-way street?

What the author chronicles is that some of the Berkeley physicists were already predisposed to asking the big questions of consciousness and the role of physics. They were not hippies, however, and were indeed late to the cultural revolution. When academics were treating physics solely as engineering, avoiding philosophical ramifications, the Berkeley group of malcontents found enthusiastic listeners among aging academic hippies, New Agers, transpersonal psychologists, and increasing numbers of scholars from diverse fields. It was a return to the 1920s and the birth of quantum mechanics when the walls of science were porous to the deep questions of philosophy and Eastern mysticism. The group's physicists were not among those whose experiments shifted paradigms or established experimental proof to key thought experiments; instead, they stirred the pot, brought physics into the living room, and spurred public support of physics research when jobs and funds were shallow.

The book goes astray here and there, packing unnecessary information in some places, not enough in others, but by and large it presents a zeitgeist, the mood and energy of a time in which everything was questioned with an openness to innovative thought. Since reading the book was not reading history but recalling memories, I had to grin throughout in 'been there, done that' mode.

Bell's nonlocality proposal and subsequent experimental proofs and the entanglement of matter attributes have led to crytography, the hook of the book, but it also led theoretically to neuroscientist Karl Pribram's informational hologram universe. Moreover, if the 11-dimension unified string theory is validated, then we have even greater complexity of strangeness but perhaps an opportunity for apprehending information transfer outside common time-space limits. After all, the elephant in the laboratory is consciousness-mind, and if physics is not even willing to consider it at least within plausible models, then it is utterly incomplete, merely mechanics and engineering, an applied not a fundamental science. Kaiser's history reminds us of this; his book is both entertaining and educational.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2012
How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival
The criterion for a good book is that it should change your behaviour, other than simply anaesthatising one from the generality of life's distractions. This book succeeds with me in that I have already bought Nick Herbert's "Quantum Reality", frequently referred to by the author David Kaiser, and am pursuing Herbert's other tome, "Elemental Mind". The issues raised as to the actual nature of what we comfortingly refer to as 'reality' are as relevant now as at the beginning of the twentieth century and need to be discussed and conceptualised in every high school, pub, coffee shop and wherever people meet, but particularly in the labs and lecture halls of teaching institutions. We used to do this (I am 79 years old now) and it should still be done.

Kaiser's analysis of the careers of Physicists over the past 50 years is relevant and certainly fits in with my own experience in the trade and it is refreshing to see it so lucidly stated.

Buy this book - a goldmine of references and anecdotes for todays Physicists and thinkers all.
8 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2013
The author has put together a masterful work of scholarship to track down this history of quantum physics and how it has gone through the politics and leading stories of our times to evolve to where it is today. Even though it is a lot of research and facts, it still reads like a good fiction novel. Since I lived through these times, and I know the Bay Area, I found it put into a clear sequence the events of those times; he knits it all together into a fascinating narrative. By the end of the book, one feels quite intimately connected to all the characters from Berkeley, Livermore, San Francisco, Esalen and such.
3 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2016
This is a terrific book! Its subject is not just the history of quantum physics in the second half of the 20th Century, but also how scientists work together in the real world. David Kaiser illuminates the role of fringe physicists (who may or may not be correct in their theories) in sparking further scientific developments. Every historic detail is researched and documented with footnotes. The book also relays a lay understanding of some of the basic principles of quantum physics, particularly Bell's theorem and the No Cloning Principle. I didn't find these explanations entirely understandable despite my considerable prior study in the area. However, this weakness is more than compensated for by the readability of the book and its elucidation of physics history. Bravo!
15 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2014
A quick, decently written visit to a small corner of the physics world in the 1970s, populated with hippies who happened to be, for the most part, underemployed physicists. Some great characters, kookie ideas, and a brave endeavor to rescue the field of physics of the blinders placed on it by the pell mell pursuit of the atomic bomb. Explanations of the physics principles involved accessible but could have been both clearer and more extensive. A fun read.
3 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2023
I plan to read it.
Stan
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2014
How in hell Kaiser could pick apart and reassemble this kaleidoscope of characters, times and places is beyond me. The research for this tale must have been a migraine. But he did it, and did it well in my opinion. Interesting, informative, funny in spots, but always incredible.

Some reviewers think that the author wrote with sympathetic bias toward this collection of geeks, but I didn't find any of that except in places where it was obviously due. These are fascinating people. Overall, this work is very even-handed.

A great book; very entertaining, with the bottom line message -- never underestimate an anomaly (whoever they are). Thank you David Kaiser.
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2017
excellent
Waldimar
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente libro
Reviewed in Spain on September 8, 2016
Detras de toda teoria existe una gran historia y este libro te cuenta la historia de como la mecanica cuantica despues de ser "entendida" (para hacer bombas atomicas) empieza a ser estudiada en todas sus implicaciones existenciales, lo que dara en el futuro las bases de la criptografia cuántica.
Persephone
4.0 out of 5 stars Hippies and Physics
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 29, 2014
The book does what is says on the cover, it explains the connection between alternative thinking and quantum mechanics. In fact what most people do not know is that alternative thinking in fact gave rise to the quantum world......
3 people found this helpful
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Dennis
3.0 out of 5 stars Un poco complicado al principio
Reviewed in Spain on June 27, 2013
Es bueno, pero esperaba que fuera un poco más anecdótico sin entrar en muchos detalles técnicos sobre física. Está bien, pero es un poco más complicado de lo que me esperaba.
Philip Coulson
2.0 out of 5 stars How Hippies saved Physics.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2013
I was hoping that this would answer some of the questions I have regarding how the idea of exchange forces, quarks and the Eightfold Path evolved. The book seems to be mainly about the idea that quantum phenomena can extend to special human powers such as those supposedly shown by Geller. A huge list of names associated with such research is scattered throughout the book. Not what I am interested in and thus disappointing.
2 people found this helpful
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