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Beyond weird : why everything you thought you knew about quantum physics is different / Philip Ball.

by Ball, Philip, 1962-

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The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Quantum theory.

9780226558387 (hc.)

Alternate title:

Why everything you thought you knew about quantum physics is different

377 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

No one can say what quantum mechanics means (and this is a book about it) -- Quantum mechanics is not really about the quantum -- Quantum objects are neither wave nor particle (but sometimes they might as well be) -- Quantum particles aren't in two states at once (but sometimes they might as well be) -- What "happens" depends on what we find out about it -- There are many ways of interpreting quantum theory (and none of them quite make sense) -- Whatever the question, the answer is "yes" (unless it's "no") -- Not everything is knowable at once -- The properties of quantum objects don't have to be contained within the objects -- There is no "spooky action at a distance" -- The everyday world is what quantum becomes at human scales -- Everything you experience is a (partial) copy of what causes it -- Schrödinger's cat has had kittens -- Quantum mechanics can be harnessed for technology -- Quantum computers don't necessarily perform "many calculations at once" -- There is no other "quantum" you -- Things could be even more "quantum" than they are (so why aren't they)? -- The fundamental laws of quantum mechanics might be simpler than we imagine -- Can we ever get to the bottom of it?

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it's not really telling us that "weird" things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world: rather, everything is quantum. But if quantum mechanics is correct, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don't seem obvious or right at all - or even possible. An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means - and what it doesn't. Science writer Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience."--From publisher.

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