Review: Taking the Quantum Leap
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsThe first half of physicist Wolf's tour of quantumdom reads like a latter-day version of Gamow's One, Two, Three Infinity, now with rock-group lyrics as epigraphs, and Koren-style cartoon illustrations by Ed Taber. The prose, indeed, is every bit as exhilarating as Gamow's, and exhibits the same passion to explain-humorously. So once more we plunge into the beginnings of atomic theory with Zeno's paradoxes and Aristotelian resolutions thereof, and move through the Renaissance and Newton to Michelson and Morley and the death of ether. With the birth of the electron, the quantum, and relativity, Wolf provides commendable explanations of visions and revisions of atomic models; he is fine, in particular, on the Uncertainty Principle. Then something happens. Wolf turns out to be a disciple of David Bohm, and sympathetic to the ideas of Eugene Wigner and others who have pushed quantum theory to its utter logical (or nonlogical, paradoxical) limits. Suddenly the world is a never-never land--or perhaps an ever-ever land--in which the observer creates reality by the very act of observation. You determine whether Schrodinger's cat, caged with a potentially lethal radioactive atom, will live or die (the atom decays, or not) by the mere act of opening the cage. You are in effect a quantum solipsist: ""You are the 'you-niverse,' "" Wolf says archly. Soon he is also paying homage to Jaynes' idea that consciousness only came into being a short time ago (the breakdown of the bicameral mind). It all amounts to ""qwiffs""--quantum wave functions--and ""pops""--intrusions made by the observer. And all this potentiality frees us to choose--to gain free will out of indeterminacy. Far better a state of freedom but unpredictability, Wolf concludes, than a perfectly certain world in which ""particles would follow well-determined paths with exact locations. . . ."" Such a world, we're assured, would mean the inexorable loss of energy and the disappearance of atoms, nervous systems, life. Enjoy the book for its bravura, then, not for its revealed truth.
Review: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
User Review - Sarah - GoodreadsI love Fred Alan Wolf. I would have benefited from a more linear approach on this non-linear topic. My issue not his. Read full review
Review: Taking The Quantum Leap: The New Physics For Nonscientists
User Review - GoodreadsSometimes it was hard for me to follow, but the ending made it worth the effort.
Review: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
User Review - Tom - Goodreadsamazon books http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Quantum-... Read full review
Review: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
User Review - Pat - GoodreadsThis was/is a very informative book on Quantam physics and I must reread it to really understand it. If you want to know the history and get a handle on what it really is then this is a good read for that. Read full review
Review: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
User Review - Daisy - GoodreadsI'm not avid on quantum mechanics but know enough to understand the theories and basic principles. This book has helped me expand my knowledge and provoked more understanding about the superposition ... Read full review
Review: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
User Review - Don Stratton - GoodreadsMr. Wolf again delivers an easy to read book explaining the mysteries of quantum physics. I especially appreciated the explanation of the collapse of the wave function through his text and ... Read full review
Review: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
User Review - Steven Peterson - GoodreadsI get headaches reading even accessible introductions to quantum theory. This book does a better-than-average job of keeping those headaches to a minimum. It is written pretty well and gives the ... Read full review
Review: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
User Review - Mari Juniper - GoodreadsMind boggling! And a great source of inspiration to those sci-fi writers out there. Read full review
Review: Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists
User Review - Pamela - GoodreadsThis was the book that got me interested in quantum mechanics and philosophy. Fred Alan Wolf is brilliant at helping the layperson make sense of the world at the quantum level. I highly recommend this as your first read if you have never been acquainted with physics. Read full review
