Quantum physics for poets

One cannot help but make comparisons to the iconic Physics for Poets by R. H. March (1970; 5th ed., 2003) which, although designed as a textbook for non-science majors and laypersons, presented a review of difficult physics topics in a historical context, much as does the book reviewed here. Although there is little poetry in either, the authors of both books write in a style that will appeal to the poet in each of us. Lederman (Nobel laureate) and Hill (Fermilab), authors of Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe (CH, Mar'05, 42-4086), begin by brilliantly recounting the classic conundrums of double-slit diffraction and blackbody radiation in order to lead readers into the nascent quantum mechanics of the 1920s. As quantum mechanics then matures, even some of its originators bristle at the consequences of their own creations. However, Lederman and Hill carefully examine these concerns and, lo and behold, it is precisely these worrisome predictions of quantum mechanics that are used to guide the reader into the newest and most exotic applications of quantum mechanics: quantum cryptography and quantum computers. There are equations and graphs, but they are easy to understand and defensible--and there is no math. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates, two-year technical program students, and general readers. J. F. Burkhart University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

In their second work (after Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe), co-authors Lederman, the Nobel Prize winning director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and present director Hill treat nature as a language to be learned, taking readers on a journey from the large to the small, "to a world within our world" and giving them a primer in the language of modern science. Star Trek, Galileo, and Newton and kick things off, and the authors address competing theories of light. Is it a wave transmitted through the ether, or a beam of photons? What could be ancient history comes to vibrant life in an engaging narrative that reveals contradictory experiments that found light to be both a wave and a particle-simultaneously. This led to further anomalies, as Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, in experiments to determine the precise location and time of an event, challenged the fundamental idea of classical physics and opened the door to probability theory. The authors give the reader a peek into the wonders of modern physics-from early "Eureka" moments to field theory and string theory-in a highly accessible introduction to third millennium science. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.