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Title: Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics by Amir D. Aczel ISBN: 1-56858-232-3 Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.88 (24 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: The Quantum Reality Einstein Could Not Suppose
Comment: In 1935 Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky raised a serious criticism of quantum theory in the form of a paradox. The criticism meant that quantum theory brings about a "spooky action at distance" or "entanglement" between quantum subsystems. Two photons generated at a point with a correlation, for example, continue to have the correlation even after they are separated by a great distance, and a change in the state of one of them affects the other instantaneously. In 1964 John Bell proposed a mathematical theorem experimentally to test the existence of entanglement. Alain Aspect carried out such an experiment in 1982 to show that entanglement is a reality.
Even one of the greatest physicists in history, Albert Einstein, could not suppose that entanglement would be a reality. So it must be quite difficult to make ordinary person understand it. Amir Aczel tried to do this difficult task in this book, but he does not seem to have well succeeded. Just half of a total of 20 chapters is spent to describe the history of quantum mechanics, though a short mention about entanglement appears at a few places. Thus the reader who learned quantum mechanics to some extent at least would find the first half of the book rather tedious. From the story of debate between Einstein and Bohr in chapter 11, the book becomes interesting. However, the author explains neither Bell's theorem nor the details of many experiments understandably. On the final page, the author reveals the reason of difficulty in understanding entanglement writing, "... the quantum theory does not tell us why things happen the way they do; why are the particles entangled?" Was our expectation to the author too big?
A good point of the book is that it includes biographical descriptions of a lot of physicists related to quantum theory and entanglement. I have learned for the first time that Thomas Young, famous for the double slit experiment, was a child prodigy. Schrödinger's anecdotal "entanglement" with women are also told. A bad point is that writing and printing are made rather carelessly. For example, von Neumann's proof of the non-existence of hidden variable in quantum mechanics and John Bell's later challenge to Neumann's assumption are repeatedly described on pages 101 and 102. There are many typos, and especially the contents of pages 234 and 235 should be interchanged. This error, combined with sudden appearance of the description of Borromean rings on page 232, makes the reader confused around these pages.
Rating: 5
Summary: So Easy to Understand it should be a Gradeschool text
Comment: This book makes the understanding of the greatest ideas in science as expressed mathematically that it should be taught to gradeschoolers.
It gives anyone who has ever breezed over the commutative property of addition/multiplication in math as simply fundamental, and without depth, a real understanding of exactly how important that property actually is; by logically and simply linking it directly to the uncertainty principal; helping some to understand it easily.
The rest of the book past the point of the commutative property and uncertainty does the same in the same fashion; and whos carese about tiepows if the message is being goteen across...understanding is what's important.
I digress...maybe it should be required reading only in magnet or schools for the more mentally endowed; however I see it as simply brilliant. (This review actually written by Brian Harred, I'm in my girlfriend's account because she was at amazon.com last on this computer).
Seriously, I highly recomend this book to anyone with an intuitive understanding of math and physics, but needs a really good, quick refresher...Brian Harred (also, how did that big blue statement about voting on our own reviews get RIGHT below my thoughts? The stars are not votes; they are the reviewer's opion as expressed in "stars"...
Rating: 3
Summary: More of a review than speculation
Comment: The majority of the book is a review of the history of physics leading up to the current understanding of entanglement, including much biographical information about the major players in the quantum mechanics arena. I would have liked to see more than just that last short chapter talking about the implications and possibilities of entanglement.
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Title: The Constants of Nature : From Alpha to Omega--the Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe by JOHN BARROW ISBN: 0375422218 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 14 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation by Joao Magueijo, Jooao Magueijo ISBN: 0738205257 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Extravagant Universe : Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos by Robert P. Kirshner ISBN: 0691058628 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 11 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: God's Equation : Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe by Amir D. Aczel ISBN: 0385334850 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 28 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: A Shortcut Through Time : The Path to the Quantum Computer by George Johnson ISBN: 0375411933 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 18 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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