Authors: John Gribbin
ISBN-13: 9780553342536, ISBN-10: 0553342533
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Date Published: August 1984
Edition: Reissue
It is so shocking that Einstein could not bring himself to accept it. It is so important that it provides the fundamental underpinning of all modern sciences. Without it, we'd have no nuclear power or nuclear bombs, no lasers, no TV, no computers, no science of molecular biology, no understanding of DNA, no genetic engineering -- at all. Now John Gribbin tells the complete story of quantum mechanics, a truth far stranger than any fiction. He takes us step-by-step into an ever more bizarre and fascinating place -- requiring only that we approach it with an open mind. He introduces the scientists who developed quantum theory. He investigates the atom, radiation, time-travel, the birth of the universe, superconductors and life itself. And in a world full of its own delights, mysteries and surprises, he searches for Schrodinger's Cat -- a search for quantum reality -- as he brings every reader to a clear understanding of the most important area of scientific study today -- quantum physics.
Acknowledgments | vii | |
Introduction | xv | |
Prologue: Nothing Is Real | 1 | |
Part 1 | The Quantum | |
Chapter 1 | Light | 7 |
Waves or Particles? | ||
Wave Theory Triumphant | ||
Chapter 2 | Atoms | 19 |
Nineteenth-Century Atoms | ||
Einstein's Atoms | ||
Electrons | ||
Ions | ||
X Rays | ||
Radioactivity | ||
Inside the Atom | ||
Chapter 3 | Light and Atoms | 33 |
The Blackbody Clue | ||
An Unwelcome Revolution | ||
What Is h? | ||
Einstein, Light, and Quanta | ||
Chapter 4 | Bohr's Atom | 51 |
Jumping Electrons | ||
Hydrogen Explained | ||
An Element of Chance: God's Dice | ||
Atoms in Perspective | ||
Chemistry Explained | ||
Part 2 | Quantum Mechanics | |
Chapter 5 | Photons and Electrons | 81 |
Particles of Light | ||
Particle/Wave Duality | ||
Electron Waves | ||
A Break With the Past | ||
Pauli and Exclusion | ||
Where Next? | ||
Chapter 6 | Matrices and Waves | 101 |
Breakthrough in Heligoland | ||
Quantum Math | ||
Schrodinger's Theory | ||
A Backward Step | ||
Quantum Cookery | ||
Chapter 7 | Cooking with Quanta | 123 |
Antimatter | ||
Inside the Nucleus | ||
Lasers and Masers | ||
The Mighty Micro | ||
Superconductors | ||
Life Itself | ||
Part 3 | ... And Beyond | |
Chapter 8 | Chance and Uncertainty | 155 |
The Meaning of Uncertainty | ||
The Copenhagen Interpretation | ||
The Experiment With Two Holes | ||
Collapsing Waves | ||
Complementarity Rules | ||
Chapter 9 | Paradoxes and Possibilities | 177 |
The Clock in the Box | ||
The "EPR Paradox" | ||
Time Travel | ||
Einstein's Time | ||
Something for Nothing | ||
Schrodinger's Cat | ||
The Participatory Universe | ||
Chapter 10 | The Proof of the Pudding | 215 |
The Spin Paradox | ||
The Polarization Puzzle | ||
The Bell Test | ||
The Proof | ||
What Does It Mean? | ||
Confirmation and Applications | ||
Chapter 11 | Many Worlds | 235 |
Who Observes the Observers? | ||
Schrodinger's Cats | ||
Beyond Science Fiction | ||
Beyond Einstein? | ||
A Second Look | ||
Beyond Everett | ||
Our Special Place | ||
Epilogue: Unfinished Business | 255 | |
Twisted Space-Time | ||
Broken Symmetry | ||
Supergravity | ||
Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation? | ||
Inflation and the Universe | ||
Bibliography | 277 | |
Index | 291 |