Schrodinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries by John Gribbin (PDF)

Description

In this eagerly anticipated sequel to the classic bestseller In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat, John Gribbin digs even deeper into the mysterious and confounding world of quantum mechanics. Gribbin takes infinitely complex, mind-bending experiments, brings them to life, and makes them accessible to the lay reader. Under his deft guidance, we can begin to grasp the fundamental riddle of today’s quantum mechanics: how a single photon can be seen going in two directions at once. Along the way, Gribbin reveals some fascinating discoveries: how quantum particles could one day be used in a Star Trek-type teleportation system, and how quantum cryptographers have developed ways of making unbreakable codes using quantum effects. Schrodinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality illuminates the world’s most intriguing and enigmatic scientific phenomenon – and shows how the “impossible dreams” of such legendary scientists as Bohr, Feynman, and Einstein may soon become reality.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From Publishers Weekly In a sequel to In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat, Gribbin offers further explorations into the often mind-bending theoretical world of contemporary quantum physics. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From the Back Cover “Nobody understands quantum theory”, said Richard Feynman, and in the 1980s that was true. Now John Gribbin presents exciting new evidence about the nature of light that pulls together quantum theory and relativity theory into a coherent explanation of reality – solving the quantum mysteries. John Gribbin’s bestselling In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat, heralded as “absolutely fascinating” by Isaac Asimov, was the first book to present the quantum’s many riddles. Now he returns with Schrodinger’s “kittens”, the offspring of his famously indeterminate cat. As a way of visualizing the many perplexing paradoxes of the new view of reality, Gribbin carries them to opposite ends of the universe, where their fate is determined by signals that travel faster than light and backwards in time. Elsewhere in the mysterious quantum world there are photons capable of being in two places at the same time. All this has much more than just theoretical interest. The practical applications are equally astounding. They provide for the serious possibility that quantum theory could eventually be used to develop a Star Trek-style teleportation machine, and how it has already found applications in uncrackable codes.

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

⭐So far, finding this easy to follow by written style and clear examples waiting still on second book I ordered on similar subject at same time

⭐Gribbin writes very well and manages to give an engaging but non-mathematical sequel here to his first book on the subject, i.e. to what most people may already know about quantum physics from high school or first-year college physics. If you don’t already know about John Bell, the Aspect experiment and non-locality, this book may be too advanced for you. If you know about them and want to go a little further, this is the next stop. Caveats: a)I don’t know how up-to-date it is today as far as experiments conducted, and b)I can’t judge whether the math truly supports hidden-variables theories more than many-worlds theories. But none of that is all that important, since the book will retain a lot of its value as a popular account of quantum theory at the end of the twentieth century, even if the theory Gribbin sees as the most promising (Cramer’s) ends up in the waste basket. Something special about the book (and a sort of vaccine against obsolescence) is the chapter “Thinking About Thinking About Things”, which puts things right once and for all (one should hope) about what it means for a physical theory to be “true”, while discounting the all too common nonsense about the role of the observer, the “meaning” of quantum mechanics, and similar ideas put forward by people with little or no training in elementary physics. Altogether a very educational reading, although I would have preferred a slightly more mathematical treatment, and I had to skip the somewhat unnecessary chapter about Newton, Descartes, etc.

⭐Do I rate this book based on 1995 standards, or 2007 standards? I opted for 1995, this book must have taken a stupendous amount of work to assemble. Work and talent deserve a full rating.Today it’s a bit dated. As noted in a prior review, Gribbin has his heart set on the Transactional interpretation of QM, but decoherence is fashionable today. I think Leggett’s inequality, which was recently proven, also goes against the Transactional intepretation. Not to mention that the transactional interpretation seems to require a closed universe and, despite Gribbin’s disclaimers, severe determinism.That’s just the last chapter though, and it makes excellent reading anyway. The rest of the work is as enthralling and disorienting as it was 12 years ago. The theoretical breakthroughs that inspired this book were predicted in the mid-20th century and proven in the late 80s, so the book stands well.It’s not “merely” a book in Quantum Mechanics. Gribbin is a philosopher of science as well as a writer and physicist, and he fits a solid discourse on the nature of scientific models into his book.It’s a relatively slender, tightly written work that rewards the careful reader. I read a bit every day, which gave me time to digest and reflect. I don’t recommend a single go, instead skim the last chapter then steadily work through the book.I will never think of the photon quite the same way again. To the timeless photon all that was is, and all that will be is …I wonder, these days, if all of cosmology and quantum mechanics is “merely” an attempt to understand the photon …

⭐I bought this book for my husband – a science PhD who loves what I consider boring books – but had to read parts of it to see if it really does explain things in a way every person can understand it. It doesn’t. I was over my head within 2 chapters. BUT my husband liked it so I’ve rated it according to its target reader’s opinion.Not an easy book to figure out, even for scientists, but apparently one worth struggling with.

⭐Well the whole “transaction” theory of quantum mechanics the author champions in this book is as laughable as the whole multiple-universe theory and the “Copenhagen Interpretation”. It is more grasping at straws and seeking the desperate remedies the author bemoans. The fact is, we’ve reached the observational limits humans have because we need photons to act as measurment tools and we are trying to get to “particles” that we assert are smaller than photons (which are not in fact either particles or waves, so we are already using the wrong language to describe reality’s “building blocks” already). Science has no conceptual model to discuss reality as it exists, only as people make it out to be. Thus is needs a new set of tools, or it needs in any case to stop embarrassing itself by at least shutting its collective trap until it has something to share that doesn’t sound like it’s the ramblings of a lunatic.So I give the book 3 stars becasue it is well-written though, in terms of style. However the book leaves the reader knowing nothing particularly new or helpful. We still have no idea what all this stuff we call reality is.

⭐I have read the book before, and want to share it with a friend. He is familiar with Schrodinger’s Cats, and I thought it might be of interest to him.

⭐Gribbin has done it again! Whilst a little dated now, much of the information is still both highly relevant and informative. A worthy successor to his classic illustrating Schrodinger’s famous cat duality, ‘Kittens’ is a readable, entertaining and clear text.An excellent primer for anyone exploring the wierd world of Quantum Physics. Even now, I recommend folks read about Schrodinger’s Cat, then the kittens and then more recent work, as these lay a valuable foundational layer for future understanding as the science becomes more involved and convoluted.Destined to be the same classic text that the first in this series is.

⭐I find John Gribbin a very clear explainer of the whole idea of quantum mechanics. The only criticism might be that he has written a later book which means that this earlier book is slightly dated. He has I think changed his views from those expressed in Schrodinger’s kittens. I think this makes reading the earlier book slightly confusing. However it is sti;; a good scientific ead.

⭐Gribbin continues to take difficult source material and explain it in a format accessible to everyone. The subject matter the author deals with fascinates me and I have read all of his popular books and found them all worthy of 5 stars.

⭐An interesting & profound book from a good and well-loved author. Beware, the sting (or solutio) is in the tail.

⭐great product swiftly delivered

⭐dope pimp!

⭐Perfect in every way.

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