Alice and Bob meet the wall of fire The biggest ideas in science from Quanta

Book - 2018

A collection of physics and biology stories from Quanta magazine. --Publisher

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Subjects
Published
[Cambridge, Massachusetts] : The MIT Press [2018]
Language
English
Other Authors
Sean M. Carroll, 1966- (writer of foreword)
Item Description
Place of publication taken from the back cover.
Physical Description
xx, 308 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780262536349
  • Foreword
  • Introduction
  • I. Why Doesn't Our Universe Make Sense?
  • Is Nature Unnatural?
  • Alice And Bob Meet The Wall Of Fire
  • Wormholes Untangle A Black Hole Paradox
  • How Quantum Pairs Stitch Space-Time
  • In A Multiverse, What Are The Odds?
  • Multiverse Collisions May Dot The Sky
  • How Feynman Diagrams Almost Saved Space
  • II. What Is Quantum Reality, Really?
  • A Jewel At The Heart Of Quantum Physics
  • New Support For Alternative Quantum View
  • Entanglement Made Simple
  • Quantum Theory Rebuilt From Simple Physical Principles
  • III. What Is Time?
  • Time's Arrow Traces To Quantum Source
  • Quantum Weirdness Now A Matter Of Time
  • A Debate Over The Physics Of Time
  • IV. What Is Life?
  • A New Physics Theory Of Life
  • How Life (And Death) Spring From Disorder
  • In Newly Created Life-Form, A Major Mystery
  • Break Through DNA Editor Born Of Bacteria
  • New Letters Added To The Genetic Alphabet
  • The Surprising Origins Of Life's Complexity
  • Ancient Survivors Could Redefine Sex
  • Did Neurons Evolve Twice?
  • V. What Makes Us Human?
  • How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains
  • New Evidence For The Necessity Of Loneliness
  • How Neanderthal DNA Helps Humanity
  • The Neuroscience Behind Bad Decisions
  • Infant Brains Reveal How The Mind Gets Built
  • VI. How Do Machines Learn?
  • Is Alphago Really Such A Big Deal?
  • New Theory Cracks Open The Black Box Of Deep Learning
  • A Brain Built From Atomic Switches Can Learn
  • Clever Machines Learn How To Be Curious
  • VII. How Will We Learn More?
  • Gravitational Waves Discovered At Long Last
  • Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story Of Stars
  • Neutron-Star Collision Shakes Space-Time And Lights Up The Sky
  • VIII. Where Do We Go From Here?
  • What No New Particles Means For Physics
  • To Solve The Biggest Mystery In Physics. Join Two Kinds Of Law
  • The Strange Second Life Of String Theory
  • A Fight For The Soul Of Science
  • Acknowledgments
  • Contributors
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

This book is a collection of 38 stories from the online magazine Quanta. The peculiar title is taken from one of the stories. Quanta is a six-year-old science and mathematics magazine devoted to in-depth articles on purely scientific topics--no stories on technology, or NASA, or human interest. Each article attempts to illuminate some of the most fundamental ideas in modern science. Although the magazine, and this anthology, both tend to be heavy with articles on physics, there are many articles on biology, the nature of life, and on what makes us human. Readers will find the short articles--which typically run about five pages--thought provoking and in many cases not easy reading. However the concepts are grand, and the quality of the articles cannot be matched by more conventional science magazines. A companion volume, The Prime Number Conspiracy (CH, May'19, XX-XXXX), contains stories on mathematics. All levels of readers will find something of interest in this anthology. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Alan Spero, formerly, University of California

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.