The Quantum Universe: (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does) 1st Edition by Brian Cox (PDF)

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International bestselling authors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw’s fascinating, entertaining, and clear introduction to quantum mechanics In The Quantum Universe, Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw approach the world of quantum mechanics in the same way they did in Why Does E=mc2? and make fundamental scientific principles accessible-and fascinating-to everyone.The subatomic realm has a reputation for weirdness, spawning any number of profound misunderstandings, journeys into Eastern mysticism, and woolly pronouncements on the interconnectedness of all things. Cox and Forshaw’s contention? There is no need for quantum mechanics to be viewed this way. There is a lot of mileage in the “weirdness” of the quantum world, and it often leads to confusion and, frankly, bad science. The Quantum Universe cuts through the Wu Li and asks what observations of the natural world made it necessary, how it was constructed, and why we are confident that, for all its apparent strangeness, it is a good theory. The quantum mechanics of The Quantum Universe provide a concrete model of nature that is comparable in its essence to Newton’s laws of motion, Maxwell’s theory of electricity and magnetism, and Einstein’s theory of relativity.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The Quantum Universe by Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw”The Quantum Universe” is the interesting book about the subatomic realm. Well known physicist and science celebrity Brian Cox along with fellow physicist Jeff Forshaw take us into the intimidating world of quantum mechanics. Using the latest in scientific understanding and creative analogies these scientists make complex topics accessible to the masses. This 272-page book is composed of the following eleven chapters: 1. Something Strange Is Afoot, 2. Being in Two Places at Once, 3. What Is a Particle? 4. Everything That Can Happen Does Happen, 5. Movement as an Illusion, 6. The Music of the Atoms, 7. The Universe in a Pin-head (and Why We Don’t Fall Through the Floor), 8. Interconnected, 9. The Modern World, 10. Interaction, and 11. Empty Space Isn’t Empty.Positives:1. The ability of great scientists to communicate to the masses.2. Fascinating topic in the hands of experts. Well researched and well written.3. Finally, a book about quantum mechanics that I can comprehend and in the process I didn’t perceive it was “dumbed” down either. Most importantly, it kept my interest and I learned while doing so. Bravo!4. Great use of charts and illustrations to assist the reader. Many concepts of physics defy common logic so the choice of sound illustrations is a must in order to understand the concepts. As an example, the use of clocks to understand particles.5. Grounding what we know based on the best knowledge that science can offer. The authors do a wonderful job of explaining the scientific process and defining what a good scientific theory is all about.6. This is strictly a science book. The authors are focused on quantum mechanics, not on the supernatural or making fun of those who do. In fact, the term “God” or “Creator” was never articulated! In other words, these authors don’t take unnecessary cheap shots and they handle this topic with the utmost respect and care.7. Effective use of math, math is vital in understanding physics but the authors know their target audience well and provide the math necessary to enhance the level of comprehension. The authors don’t make the mistake of other books that bombard readers with esoteric equations and don’t follow up with a comprehensive narration.8. Great explanation of why the laws of quantum theory replace Newton’s laws.9. The authors seamlessly capture discoveries and their discoverers throughout the book.10. The unique characteristics of the electron, and I mean unique.11. I’m in awe of science! It’s truly amazing how a basic understanding of quantum theory can lead one to understand the observed properties of some of the most massive objects in the universe.12. The great Richard Feynman and his contributions to quantum mechanics…the understanding of subatomic particles. “Feynman is a second Dirac, only this time human”. A giant of the subatomic world.13. Understanding that being counterintuitive (moving away from common experience) is common in quantum mechanics. In other words, embrace your weirdness.14. Fascinating tidbits throughout such as it was often claimed that the youth of the scientists allowed them to free themselves of old ways of thinking and thus be able to understand the world of quantum theory. Of course there are exceptions…Schrodinger.15. The probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics…the loss of predictive power, even Einstein was bothered with it.16. The least action principle…a cornerstone of physics.17. The Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle…it’s amazing how being annoyed by the attention that Schrodinger received would drive a great scientist to his own version of quantum theory. We are talking about great scientists, not reality-TV stars. Goes to show that even scientists are humans too.18. The brief history of Planck’s constant. He was able to explain the black body spectrum…the rest is well, history.19. The fascinating result of how to describe a moving particle. The de Broglie equation and how it works and wave packets.20. The vastness inside an atom and what exactly is going on inside there. If you like guitars or drums this section is for you. The term quantized is music to my ears.21. The work of physicist Wolfgang Pauli and why we don’t fall through the floor. The Pauli Exclusion Principle. Great stuff.22. The book does touch up on cosmology and you know that is always fun.23. The periodic table an interesting narrative.24. Atomic clusters…chemical bonding, semiconductors.25. An appreciation for one of the most important inventions ever, the transistor. Thank you quantum theory.26. Profound thoughts and concepts: “Every electron in the Universe knows about the state of every other electron”. And that goes for protons and neutrons too.27. Understanding the utility of semiconductor materials. Who knew physics was so much fun?28. The nature of interaction between particles. Quantum field theory and its rules.29. Quantum electrodynamics (QED), the theory that explains how particles interact with each other and photons. Once again thank you Mr. Feynman and Schwinger and company.30. Anti-matter or an electron travelling backwards in time. Remember, embrace your weirdness. Oh and it does get weird.31. A survey of The Standard Model of particle physics. Come on Large Hadron Collider (LHC)…32. A list of all the known particles and if we are lucky with the aforementioned LHC certainly more will be added to the list.33. How modern physics aim to provide an answer to “what is the origin of mass?” The key…the Higgs boson, come on LHC. Branching rules.34. An interesting Epilogue on the death of Stars. Fascinating stuff, applied science at its best.Negatives:1. Quantum mechanics is complicated there is no ifs and buts about it. Even at the most accessible level some concepts will not be comprehended. Many concepts of physics defy common logic and so some patience is needed to go over some of the topics.2. Furthermore, this is not the type of book that you can jump from one topic to another without paying a price. Some concepts need to be learned first before you can move on to understand new concepts. The use of clocks (as an analogy) to understand waves is fundamental to understanding the concepts being conveyed. I can’t stress that enough. Once you understand how the analogy works you will progress through the book. Patience, focus and some caffeine.3. Further reading section would have been enhanced with a complete bibliography.In summary, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The authors made comprehending such complex topics fun which is an accomplishment in its own right. The introductory knowledge that I have obtained by this book helps me gain a better understanding of our world. My love of knowledge is rewarded by great books like The Quantum Universe”. We know so little about world but every little bit of knowledge that we do obtain through the endeavors of science just gives me a sense of awe that no other human experience can match. The quest for knowledge is the most fulfilling journey any human can take. Do yourself a favor and don’t hesitate to get the “The Quantum Universe”.Further suggestions: ”

⭐” by Lawrence M. Krauss, ”

⭐” by Adam Frank, ”

⭐” by Philip Plait, ”

⭐” by Stephen Hawking, and ”

⭐” by Mathew Hedman.

⭐Read only the first 1/3 to 1/2. Well written, lucid in exposition. Cox is both a deep thinker and deep ‘explainer’, an expositor of knowledge on the quantum world.The problem in finishing the entire book was in examples for the explanations. Full disclosure … I am not a physicist but have taken academic courses using wave mechanics as a basis for statistical mechanics. Also started as a EE so the ‘little clocks’ model was a weak way to explain wave phase shifts. The clock model became tedious and I chose not to continue. I acknowledge I may be singular in the reading population and this artifice may work for most.What didn’t work is tedious detail in explanations. Quantum theory – to me – requires a high degree of conceptualization, however this happens. The analytical side of quantum mechanics appeals to physicists but this may not be the most important aspect in getting your mind around the oddities. A conceptual leap is essential (or ‘faith’). Conceptualization for many people (including me) doesn’t happen with words. It isn’t easily explainable. Cox’ pedantic step by step details weren’t useful in this regard (explanations were useful) and simply bogged the book down to be not very entertaining. I’m sorry I couldn’t read it all, would likely have profited, but couldn’t get through the detail. Put this down to old age (for prospective readers who may be approaching last years).I’m not sure how to rate this given personal views … 4 stars with some misgivings. This ‘score’ is kind relative to an experience that started out with excitement and crashed with boredom.

⭐Complex subject – audio book is great, but wanted the hard copy to help retain the knowledge.Book was used but like new.

⭐Writing a layperson’s book on Physics must be one of the most challenging projects known to man. Writers must resist going to the extreme of either making it a comic book with little meaningful insight or turning it into a textbook that goes over the layperson’s head.The best layperson’s physics books are written in a sort of cook-book style where the final “dishes” are shown with all their wonderful deliciousness, and the ingredients that they are made from are listed, but the details of how all the ingredients interact to make the flavors are omitted because they are beyond the layperson’s understanding and interest.I recently read such a wonderful book by Cox and Forshaw when I GOOGLED on “Why does E=MC2” and was directed to their book of that title

⭐. They beautifully explained why E=MC2 isn’t just the equivalence of energy to mass, but is an expression of the basic nature of the space/time universe. They answered every question I wanted to know about the subject and a lot more. That book is one of the top two or three popular physics books I’ve ever read, and I’ve been reading them since Isaac Asimov and George Gamow began writing them in the 1960s.Their new book THE QUANTUM UNIVERSE is NOT a layperson’s book. On a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being the “comic book” and 10 being a physics textbook, this would come in at an 8. I didn’t find the book to be interesting or meaningful. The problem isn’t in the writing, which is lucid. It isn’t any lack of illustration; a major effort was put into explaining the concepts graphically as diagrams and pictures. The difficulty is the complexity of the subject matter itself. A layperson, even with some college physics and previous reading of Quantum Mechanics under their belt, will need to allocate about a week of intensive study to make a dent in understanding the book.I would suggest that there are much more informative and enjoyable books on quantum mechanics for the layperson. Cox and Forshaw’s own

⭐is one of those even though it touches only indirectly on quantum mechanics. Brian Clegg’s

⭐is another excellent book that better explains at a layperson’s level of comprehension the relationship between Quantum Mechanics and the visible universe.Cox and Forshaw have probably made the best presentation at this level of complexity that is possible. However, the complexity is intimidating. If you’re a typical layperson you’ll want to dedicate a week of study to this book and have a bottle of aspirin handy for the headaches you’re going to get from trying to comprehend it. It is heavy in mathematical formulas.I may come back to this book from time to time when I want to delve deeper into the meaning of Quantum Mechanics, but, unlike Cox and Forshaw’s WHY DOES E=MC2, it did not hold my interest during the first reading. I’m going to rate it 3 stars because professional physicists may enjoy it. But I don’t think a casual reader of physics books would.I can’t fault the structure, writing, or illustration of the book, but its subject matter IS difficult. Perhaps it will be ideal for a highschool science or physics teacher (or a highschool student intending to make a career in science or physics) who has time and inclination to study the intermediate levels of quantum mechanics.btw. in response to this review another reviewer commented that

⭐may be a more enjoyable encounter with quantum mechanics for a lay reader. I just finished that book and heartily agree.

⭐A fascinating topic and it’s good to finally see a paperback on QM that doesn’t shy away from the detail or pad out explanations purely to fill a book. This is a well thought out and information dense book that rewards slow reading (a good thing I think). I bought this as I felt that my brief covering of QM at University many years ago (I studied Astrophysics, so just did two courses on QM) didn’t cover the topic in enough depth to satisfy me.I do have two criticisms though I’m afraid: a lot of concepts are introduced without explanation (for example quantum numbers, which I was looking forward to understanding better) and requite the reader to continue without a full understanding, and secondly one analogy in particular using clocks is rather challenging and in my opinion more confusing than the mathematical principles it’s trying to simplify. Annoyingly, this baffling clocks analogy runs for chapter after chapter! There are some great explanations though, and the section on chemical bonds that I’m reading now is particularly good and well explained.

⭐I bought this book after reading “Why does E=mc2?” by the same authors, which I enjoyed very much. Not having a background in maths and/or physics, I found this second book very difficult. I’m not sure whether this is due to the subject matter or the approach taken to it. The authors seem to assume quite a knowledge of physics in their audience (which I do not have), introducing and using terms way before they are ever defined – if they ever are. Equations are introduced, explained and then changed with no explanation, for example, the rewinding of clocks equation is proposed including time and mass. When the equation is used, time and mass are no longer a part of it. I understand that quantum physics is weird, but surely not that weird. The authors spend so much time on proofs and on repeating the clock analogy, that I do not really know what their aim was in writing the book.I have since read “The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics” by James Kakalios, which was set much more at my level, explaining such things as Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Principle” and Pauli’s “Exclusion Principle” without the maths, and was, for me, a much more enjoyable read.

⭐This book fills a largely empty gap between “pop science” (where books often try hard to avoid using a single equation) and textbooks. It’s a brave attempt – after all, physics IS maths, and dodging the equations means dodging the best explanations.The result is a readable and well-rounded introduction to the concepts of quantum mechanics in sequence, using the same analogies physics students are taught – quantum clocks, sine waves – and with the maths explained along the way, derived – well, not from first principles, but from more familiar places like Maxwell and Newton’s equations that most readers will have encountered before.That said, it’s not that well written – a bit florid in places. In addition, there are formatting issues with my Kindle edition that lead to uneven line breaks and spotty justification. So while the book has great value, I didn’t enjoy reading it. It did solidify my understanding of the subject though (as an enthusiastic amateur) so deserves four stars.

⭐The book addresses the layman reader and does not require a prior knowledge of Mathematics or a previous exposure in quantum theory. The reader can comprehend the book following the reasoning of the authors and is not necessary to understand whatever Mathematics appear in the text – limited anyway with the exception of the epilogue which is optional and which does include quite a bit of Algebra. The authors explain that the sole reason for the presence of Mathematics in the text is for the interested reader not to rely on the authority of the authors but to have available the mathematical underpinning. The book, however, is not an easy reading the remarkable writing ability of the authors notwithstanding.The authors follow a natural sequence and a step by step approach. They present the phenomena that puzzled physicists in the latter part of the nineteenth century which eventually led them to abandon the deterministic Newtonian world and adopt the counterintuitive, arcane, esoteric and probabilistic quantum theory which, however, predicts experimental results with amazing accuracy. The authors consider sequentially a single quantum particle, atom, clusters of atoms, which lead to both the covalent bond and Chemistry and the development of the transistor, the most remarkable ivention in the last hundred years and based on quantum theory;they then consider particle interaction and quantum field theory, the elusive Higgs boson and its significance in the origin of mass. An optional epilogue concerns the computation of the maximum mass of a white dwarf.The phenomena which puzzled physicists in the second half of the nineteenth century were their inability to obtain the exact relationship between the distribution of wavelengths emitted by hot objects and their temperature and radioactive decay which run counter to the perceived stability of atoms.The word quantum is due to Max Planck who in a stroke of genius in 1900 realized that the ‘black body radiation’ problem could only be explained if light is emitted in quanta that is discrete packages.The coup de grace for Newton’s theory was given as a result of a series of experiments in the 1920’s. Until then it was accepted that light as shown by Maxwell were emitted via electromagnetic waves. In a series of experiments from 1923 to 1925 Arthur Compton and his co-workers succeeded in bouncing the quanta of light off electrons. In 1926 the light quanta were christened ‘photons’. The evidence was icontrovertible – light behaves both as a wave and as a particle. That signalled the end of classical physics and the beginning of quantum theory. There is also the double-slit experiment with electrons conducted by Davisson and Germer at Bell laboratories in 1927 displaying an inteference pattern and in this way demonstrating the particle-wave duality of the electrons.A quantum particle is a single particle that is in many places at once;we refer to these counterintuitive, spread-out yet-point-like particles as quantum particles. The field associated with the particle is called the wavefunction;the Erwin Schrodinger equation of the wavefunction describes how it changes as time passes. The famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that it is impossible to know with accuracy both the position of a particle and its momentum;the precise statement is that the product of the uncertainty in the position of a particle and its momentum will be roughly equal to Planck’s constant. The de Broglie equation states that the potential equals the Planck constant divided by the wavelength. This is interesting because it relates the potential associated with a particle and wavelength which is associated with waves. The de Broglie equation constituted a huge conceptual leap. In his original paper, he wrote that a ‘fictituous associated wave’ should be assigned to all particles, including electrons, and that a stream of electrons passing through a slit ‘should show diffraction phenomena’. In 1923 this was theoretical speculation, because Davisson and Germer did not observe an inteference pattern using beams of electrons until 1927.The simplest atom comprise the positively charged proton which is a qvantum colossus compared with the tiny and negatively charged electron and is electrically neutral. It is also a virtually vast empty space. The problem faced by early workers was that as electrons orbit around the nucleus emit light and in the process lose energy and spiral inwards on an inevitable collision course with the proton. This does not happen and we should explain why. The reason is that electrons inside atoms occupy states of definite energy, known as stationary states. It is possible for an electron to make the transition from one energy state to another with the concurent emission/absorption of a photon. The emission of photons in this way makes tangible the energy states in an atom, we see the characteristic colour of atomic emissions. One of the fascinating aspects of our quantum universe is the Pauli Exclusion Principle in that only two electrons can occupy each available energy level. Freeman Dyson and Andrew Lenard in 1967 showed that matter can only be stable if electrons obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle.The contemplation of atomic clusters will lead us to chemical bonding and the transistor. There is a preference for two atoms with half-filled bands to stick together as a result of sharing the electrons between them known as covalent bond. Covalent bond is the basis of Chemistry and results in the creation of molecules from water to DNA.Due to space limitations I shall not enter into the basis of the transistor apart from mentioning that it is deeply quantum but shall present some staggering figures. To-day, every year the world manufactures over 10 in the 18th power transistors, which is one hundred times more than the sum total of all the world’s grains of rice consumed every year by the world’s seven billion residents. The transistor has a continuing tranformative impact on our lives with application in Science, Medicine, and telecommunications. Your mobile phone has one billion transistors.The nature of the interaction between particles is the domain of quantum field theory. The first and best studied quantum field theory is quantum electrodynamics, or QED. QED is the theory that explains how electrically charged particles, like electrons and protons interact with each other and with light (photons). It is capable of explaining all natural phenomena with the exception of gravity and nuclear phenomena. QED does not explain the ‘strong nuclear’ processes that bind quarks together inside protons and neutrons or the ‘weak nuclear’ processes that keep our Sun burning. Th W and Z particles madiate the weak force while the gluons mediate the strong force. We do not have yet a quantum theory of gravity.The authors opted to conclude the book with the computation of the maximum mass of a ‘white dwarf’ amounting to 1.4 solar masses as a tribute to the scientific method, quantum theory, and the human intellect. The calculation was first performed by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in 1930 and relies on an understanding of nuclear physics, of quantum physics, and of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. It depends on Planck’s constant, the speed of light, Newton’s gravitational constant, and the mass of proton.

⭐Despite the subtitle of this book (“Everything that can happen does happen”), this is really a practical “shut up and calculate” book about quantum theory.One of the problems with fundamental physics is that the underlying implications of quantum theory are just plain mind-boggling. For example, the theory of `superposition’ tells us that a particle of matter can be in many places at once and `non-locality’ says that particles on opposite sides of the universe can communicate with each other instantaneously – and as far as we know, they can. Even a mind as great as Einstein’s struggled with the latter proposition.Because of this, it is really too easy for lay-people (like myself) to get dazzled by glamorous ideas such as multiple universes and observer created reality and the like. These are all serious theories – and they make for exciting, saleable books – but they are also extremely speculative and ultimately un-testable.So this new book by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw is, like their previous title, an attempt to explain exactly what an important theory means to you and me in our everyday lives. At root, it is about why and how atoms form from tiny particles such as electrons and protons. This is so important because it explains how everything in the universe is as we see it. It explains why, from just a few elementary particles, we get the one hundred or so elements of the Periodic Table, why stars and planets form from clouds of dust, why solids are solids and liquids are liquids and why some solids conduct electricity.At the end of it, we are still forced to accept superposition and non-locality but this book asks you not to think about that too much, to accept their inevitability and get on with understanding how quantum theory explains the above. It has shown me that the basic rules of quantum theory are really quite simple to understand. After probably reading too many books on the speculative side of this subject, this is a wonderfully, refreshing and successful approach.And, please be reassured, none of this means that you are forbidden to wonder about the true nature of reality when you are done understanding the principles!

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