"Beyond Weird" by Philip Ball

This book is about quantum physics. It contains all the usual suspects: wave-particle duality, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Schrodinger's Cat, the Many Worlds Interpretation. According to Ball these are fundamentally inadequate attempts to view the quantum world - which underpins (and is coherent with) the everyday world - in images that rely on everyday understandings. He throws in some of the modern research on entanglement, superposition, wavefunction collapse and decoherence. And, in the end, he concludes that possibly, quantum physics is a theory of information.

It is a comprehensive overview of the field and, so far as I can judge, it is fair to all the many different interpretations of what quantum physics means. It even asks whether the theory is ontic (dealing with reality) or epistemic (dealing with what we know). I found it tough going in places and there are some bits that I still don't understand (and I used to teach quantum physics at secondary school level). But there were other moments when Ball's explanations led me a significantly deeper understanding than I had before and for that I can only be grateful. And impressed. If he can deliver even a little greater understanding about this tough subject, it is a remarkable achievement.

Selected quotes:

• “Quantum theory ... is a theory about information. ... it asks what a theory of knowability can look like.” (p16)
• “What do we mean by ‘is’? ... As for what an electron ‘is’, all we can talk about for sure is what we can see and measure.” (p60)
• “Everything that seems strange about quantum mechanics comes down to measurement. If we take a look, the quantum system behaves one way. If we don’t, the system does something else.” (p78)
• “Niels Bohr ... wasn’t naturally gifted as a writer - he would draft and redraft endlessly without much obvious benefit to the prose.” (p104)
• "Whatever the question, the answer is ‘Yes’ (unless it’s ‘No’)" (chapter heading)
• “Quantum mechanics might seem ‘weird’, but it is not illogical. It’s just that it employed a new and unfamiliar logic ... with different customs and traditions and with its own beautiful internal consistency.” (p128)
• “It is not obvious why any of the properties that things have at the everyday scale should remain meaningful properties at the microscopic scale. Some don’t. Electrons don’t have a colour.” (p129)
• “No one fully understands how quantum computers work.” (p278)
• “In science ... it’s as worthwhile for an idea to be productive as it is for it to be ‘right’.” (p285)
• “Might it be that non-locality is simply in the nature of things, and relativity is the only thing that limits its influence?” (p309)
• “There’s no guarantee that the world’s innermost workings will fit a language developed mostly to conduct trade, courtship and banter.” (p324)

October 2022; 354 pages

Other books reviewed in this blog about science and scientists can be found here. 

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God