The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality by Paul Halpern (PDF)

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The story of the unlikely friendship between the two physicists who fundamentally recast the notion of time and history In 1939, Richard Feynman, a brilliant graduate of MIT, arrived in John Wheeler’s Princeton office to report for duty as his teaching assistant. A lifelong friendship and enormously productive collaboration was born, despite sharp differences in personality. The soft-spoken Wheeler, though conservative in appearance, was a raging nonconformist full of wild ideas about the universe. The boisterous Feynman was a cautious physicist who believed only what could be tested. Yet they were complementary spirits. Their collaboration led to a complete rethinking of the nature of time and reality. It enabled Feynman to show how quantum reality is a combination of alternative, contradictory possibilities, and inspired Wheeler to develop his landmark concept of wormholes, portals to the future and past. Together, Feynman and Wheeler made sure that quantum physics would never be the same again.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “[Paul Halpern] is at his best when explaining concepts of physics.”―Wall Street Journal”Feynman was a doer, Wheeler a dreamer. So Paul Halpern aptly describes them in The Quantum Labyrinth, his book about their lives, work and friendship, and the virtues of their complementary styles….Feynman was one of the greatest intuitive problem-solvers in twentieth-century physics, a world-class doer. But I suspect that many readers will take most pleasure from the account of Wheeler’s inspired dreaming.”―Nature”Paul Halpern brings the full story of these men to life in a brilliant way…Feynman’s contributions to the development of quantum field theory…are not only covered, they’re explained in gloriously in-depth and simultaneously comprehensible fashion…Well-researched, well-written, and highly accessible.”―Forbes.com/Starts With a Bang “[The Quantum Labyrinth] provides a portrait of a rather neglected era in physics. Following the twin revolutions of quantum theory and relativity in the early 1900s, the 1940s to the late 1960s can appear like a time when already challenging ideas became all but incomprehensible beyond the academy. But Halpern shows that it was every bit as significant as the pre-war period that looks now to be an age almost of gods and legends.”―Physics World”Excellent…[Halpern] brings onto the stage two of the key developers of the modern quantum theory.”―Nature Physics”Readers soon see that Feynman achieved his breakthroughs in physics by collaborating with his mentor, John Wheeler…With the same clarity that has attracted readers to Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat and his other books of popular science, Halpern retraces the way this unlikely pair smashed traditional understandings of time…A compelling reminder that even the most triumphant science comes from vulnerable humans.”―Booklist (starred review)”[Halpern] paints an evocative picture of the tension between cooperation and competition felt by researchers at the cutting edge.”―Library Journal”Go to any physics meeting and ask each person there for their list of the top ten most influential physicists of the 20th century. Lots of different names will appear, but everybody will name Einstein (of course!). Nearly all will mention Feynman and Wheeler, too. After reading Halpern’s thought-provoking book, you’ll understand why.”— Paul J. Nahin, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at University of New Hampshire and author of In Praise of Simple Physics”In this exciting new book, Paul Halpern explores the strange counter-balance between two remarkable scientists. Everyone knows of Richard Feynman as a showman, but Halpern brings out Feynman’s true depth as a careful researcher of meticulous integrity and the perfect artisan to carry out John Wheeler’s revolutionary ideas. The result is a fascinating story.”— Frank Close, author of Half-Life and The Infinity Puzzle”The Quantum Labyrinth is the thoughtful and moving story of two great physicists and their entangled lives. Feynman and Wheeler’s exuberant creativity allowed them to explore the extremes of reality, finding the cracks and fissures of contemporary physics. Yet at the same time, they were instrumental in setting the foundations of our modern understanding of physical law.”— Pedro G. Ferreira, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford About the Author Paul Halpern is a professor of physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and the author of sixteen popular science books, including The Quantum Labyrinth. He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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

⭐Halpern skillfully balances scientific explanations and personal stories. For example . . .“Justifying his bold expeditions into the unknown, Wheeler once said, “We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” (2696)(Appears Wheeler is borrowing Newton’s illustration)“Wheeler attributed his zeal for minimalism to his austere Protestant background. Specifically, he was a lifelong Unitarian, a faith that distills unifying principles from diverse beliefs. . . .’’(Another connection to Newton. Newton did his scientific work to build faith in the one Creator. He rejected the trinity.)“. . . In line with such values, he ardently sought the essence of things, looking beyond superficial differences. Like a Shaker furniture maker pursuing his craft with saw, hammer, and nails, Wheeler deemed simplicity a virtue. His construction materials would change over time, but his pursuit of the basics would remain constant. He described his passion as follows:(‘Simple faith’ Why? Unitarian, as the word describes, rejects a trinitarian god for the one god of the Jews. “Scribe asked him: “Which commandment is first of all?” Jesus answered: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.” – Mark 12:29)“There grew up in time, to be sure, a litany that many a student was taught to repeat with a mindless faith of a catechism: there are four forces: the strong force, the weak force, the electric force, and the gravitational force. But my Protestant upbringing made me reject this catechism. What simpler faith could I put in its place? Ideals of unity and simplicity, unattainable now and perhaps for years to come. Take one force, electromagnetism, and explore and exploit it to the limit. That made a program pure enough and ambitious enough that I could give myself to it wholeheartedly.’’ (1910)‘Give myself wholeheartedly’. Recalls . . .“Jesus answered: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, and you must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind and with your whole strength.’’Interesting that Wheeler used the idea of ‘one force’ as his ‘greatest commandment’!Feynman . . .“At the hearings, he dipped an O-ring into ice water and demonstrated its lack of resilience. After the commission’s report was prepared, he found it too noncommittal and issued a much more damning critique of his own, included as an appendix. Detailing the mistakes made, including officials’ failure to anticipate the formation of cracks in various systems, it ended with an admonition: “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.’’’’ (4081)This determined integrity, this fight for truth, scientific or otherwise, summarizes Feynman. Feynman famous for ‘sum over history’. Halpern explains where derived . . .“According to the principle of least action, proposed by Irish mathematician William Hamilton . . .”[well . . . “Maupertuis published his thinking on these matters in his Essai de cosmologie (Essay on cosmology) of 1750. . . . But a universal principle of wisdom provides an undeniable proof of the shaping of the universe by a wise creator. . . . Hence the principle of least action is not just the culmination of Maupertuis’s work in several areas of physics, he sees it as his most important achievement in philosophy too, giving an incontrovertible proof of God.’’ – Wikipedia]“. . . an object takes the route that optimizes (minimizes or maximizes) the action. Typically, that corresponds to the minimal action. Therefore, if you compute the action for every possible path that a basketball might take, the lowest value matches the genuine trajectory. Mathematically, then, by computing the actions for all possible paths and minimizing that value, the result is a set of relationships, called Lagrange’s equations, that describe the body’s actual motion. . . . The least action principle is marvelous in that it recasts classical physics on an intuitive basis. Everything in the universe tries to find the optimal path from start to finish.’’ (1152)Feynman puzzling . . .“Resounding in his tired brain was the need for a whole new approach. He knew that he had to start completely from scratch and somehow rebuild quantum physics using a least action principle—but how?’’“Feynman grabbed Jehle’s suggestion and ran with it to his long-awaited goal. Perusing Dirac’s paper, he immediately saw how its Lagrangian methods were ideal for quantizing the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory. By formulating the theory in terms of an action principle and defining the classical trajectory as the least action path, he could frame it as a range of quantum possibilities.’’“As his excitement for Feynman’s method grew, Wheeler thought he might even be able to persuade Einstein of its brilliance. He stopped by Einstein’s house again and had a deep discussion with him in his upstairs study. Wheeler asked if Feynman’s novel technique might persuade him to drop his opposition to quantum theory.’’“However, Einstein, eyeing the theory’s chance component, couldn’t be swayed. “I can’t believe that God plays dice,” said Einstein. “But maybe I’ve earned the right to make my mistakes.”’’Halpern draws touching personal sketches . . .“One afternoon, Feynman was meeting his mom for lunch in New York City, when a wave of depression came over him unexpectedly. Observing the street life around him—all the businessmen, tourists, and others roaming the skyscraper canyons of the city—he mentally calculated how many blocks an atomic bomb would decimate. He thought about the feasibility of making destructive nuclear weapons and trembled at the possibility that Manhattan could end up like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suddenly he realized the extent of the horror that he and his colleagues at Los Alamos had unleashed. There was no hope for the world, he concluded. Everything was futile.’’Feynman’s first wife had died years ago. Nevertheless . . .“Around the same time, Feynman felt a powerful urge to comfort Arline and tell her how much he still loved and missed her. He decided to write her a letter saying the things he wished he could have told her when she was still alive. Recalling her desire not to burden him with her problems, he explained how, on the contrary, she had helped him so much, even during her time of illness. She was his inspiration. Without her, life simply wasn’t as fun.’’“You were the ‘idea-woman’ and general instigator of all our wild adventures,” Feynman wrote.Feynman understood well the paradoxical situation of writing to someone deceased. For one thing, as he pointed out, he obviously couldn’t mail the letter to her. Yet he confessed that Arline still meant more to him than any living person.“I love my wife. My wife is dead,” he dolefully concluded.The letter, never sent, was well worn—indicating that he likely read it again and again.’’INTRODUCTION – A Revolution in TimeCHAPTER ONE – Wheeler’s WatchCHAPTER TWO – The Only Particle in the UniverseCHAPTER THREE – All the Roads Not to ParadiseCHAPTER FOUR – The Hidden Paths of GhostsCHAPTER FIVE – The Island and the Mountains: Mapping the Particle LandscapeCHAPTER SIX – Life as an Amoeba in the Foamy Sea of PossibilitiesCHAPTER SEVEN – Time’s Arrow and the Mysterious Mr. XCHAPTER EIGHT – Minds, Machines, and the CosmosCONCLUSION – The Way of the LabyrinthEPILOGUE – Encounters with WheelerLast chapter . . .“Today, while we celebrate the Standard Model, we recognize its limitations and wish to move beyond it. One of its glaring omissions: it doesn’t include dark matter and dark energy, invisible components of the universe recognized during Wheeler’s final decades but still unidentified.’’“Dark energy, the unknown propellant of accelerating cosmic expansion, is another great scientific mystery. As two teams of researchers discovered in the late 1990s, not only has space been expanding since the Big Bang but also its rate of growth has been speeding up. In 2011, team leaders Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery. No one knows what causes space to enlarge at an ever-faster rate. Scientists are uncertain if the pace will pick up even further, slow down, or remain steady. Curiously, the cosmological constant, discarded by Albert Einstein after Edwin Hubble’s 1929 discovery that galaxies are moving away from each other, has turned out to model well the effects of dark energy.’’“Another contemporary conundrum, leftover from the days of Feynman, Wheeler, and DeWitt, is why gravitation is such an oddball. Why is it so much weaker than the other interactions? How might it be described in a mathematically consistent fashion using the methods of quantum field theory?’’Halpern writing to an educated, maybe even academic reader. The general reader (me) can still absorb much, but there is considerable theoretical physics (over my head).About one hundred seventy-five notes (linked). Great!Exhaustive forty page index (linked). Wonderful!Several b/w photographs

⭐I am not a physicist. I wouldn’t know a Higgs field from Wrigley Field. But after a college course in the history of science, I became fascinated with the subject. As a result, I have read a lot of books written by scientists who have made an effort to explain complex scientific theories – particularly in physics — in layman’s terms. What those books often leave out, however, is the human element. Scientific discoveries are made by people, obviously, and the people who make them seldom do so in cold, clinical, ivory tower isolation. Rather, they do so in a sometimes collaborative, often competitive environment with other scientists — not only their colleagues down the hall, but others halfway around the world. They also make these discoveries in the course of living their own lives, pursuing friendships and romances, having families, struggling with political, financial and health issues, and otherwise contending with the messy stuff of life. And these breakthroughs do not come easy – these scientists find their way to them only after many false starts and much time and effort in blind alleys, often while enduring much criticism from colleagues and competitors.Scientific biographies, on the other hand, often tend to focus on the lives of their subjects while making little effort to describe and explain the details of their scientific ideas and discoveries. This is, I suppose, to be expected, since such biographies are seldom written by physicists who fully understand, and thus can effectively convey, those highly complex ideas to non-scientist readers. A happy medium, for me, would be a book that explores both the personal and the scientific dimensions of these breakthroughs in the realm of physics. And here is where The Quantum Labyrinth shines.The author, Paul Halpern, is a physicist. Happily, he has a gift for explaining complex, often purely mathematical concepts in physics – including the bizarre and non-intuitive behavior of matter at the sub-atomic scale described by the theory of quantum mechanics — in a way which is engaging and, at least in my case, somewhat understandable. But he presents those explanations in both their historical context, as well as in the context of the personal lives and relationships of the people who developed them. His primary subjects are two of the greatest minds of 20th century physics – Richard Feynman and John Archibald Wheeler – whose friendship began when Feynman began his graduate work at Princeton and was assigned to be Wheeler’s teaching assistant. The book explores their unique personalities as well as the development of their scientific ideas — and their friendship – over the course of many eventful decades.But it doesn’t stop with Feynman and Wheeler; it includes many fascinating glimpses into their collaborations — and their conflicts — with other great physicists of their time, and shows how the newly emerging understanding of quantum mechanics – as well as many other breakthroughs – developed along many different pathways through the 20th century as a result of these collaborations. Familiar names from that era of science – Einstein (of course), Bohr, Dirac, Shroedinger, Heisenberg, Oppenheimer, and many others – all make an appearance, and Halpern makes an effort to show us who they were as people, not just as scientific icons. Particularly fascinating to me was the way their scientific breakthroughs ultimately became critical in the struggle to defeat the Axis powers in World War II, and how these scientists coped with being “drafted” into the war effort.In sum, I heartily recommend this book for those interested in the history of science generally, the development of 20th century physics particularly, and in the fascinating lives of those whose extraordinary work gave us the world we live in today.

⭐The book was delivered on time. The quality was good.

⭐For those who are not professional physicists, the science parts of this book will be a challenge since understanding quantum mechanics and its development is difficult for even the greatest physicists. Recall Niels Bohr’s statement: “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” But the story of how Feynman and Wheeler pursued a more complete understanding of the quantum in relation to Einstein’s theory of relativity wonderfully shows how these two fundamentally different intellects work together to advance our understanding of both the quantum and relativity. For me as a non-scientist, the human story of how Feynman and Wheeler worked together and separately to advance science knowledge makes this book gripping and rewarding reading.

⭐First, this is written for the layman to understand – no esoteric stuff or formulas that require a graduate degree in physics. I appreciate that. Second, Feynman had a puckish sense of humor, which I had not known, and it was really funny how he turned Wheeler’s practice of having a small clock on his desk during meetings into a great joke. Of course, there were also his lock-picking escapades at Los Alamos. Third, this is the first book that managed to make clear to me the essential nature of quantum mechanics/physics. Not even Feynman’s “Six Easy Pieces” had managed that. Well worth the time to read it.

⭐Paul Halpern, a physicist and historian of science, has written here a combined biography of John Wheeler and Richard Feynman covering the fifty years of their interlinked careers in physics (c. 1940-1990). Feynman started out as a student of Wheeler’s, working on the deep problems of Dirac’s early formulation of quantum electrodynamics, specifically ‘the infinities’. Wheeler and Feynman resurrected the old Newtonian idea of ‘action at a distance’, combining advanced and retarded solutions of Maxwell’s equations to model radiation resistance. This led to Feynman’s development of the path integral formalism.The war diverted both of them to the Manhattan project – Feynman’s war in particular has been amply covered in many other books, together with his doomed marriage to Arline.Post-war we see the full-on assault on QED where Feynman diagrams make their appearance, we accompany Wheeler as he makes General Relativity relevant again, and we encounter topics as diverse as cosmology, the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, time travel, nanotechnology and quantum computing.To read this book is to journey with the protagonists. It’s strong on places and times, on personalities and issues and debates. There are no equations or diagrams, although Halpern has a talent for verbal description (he makes a reasonable job of describing delayed-choice experiments, for example).If you’re a physics graduate who has absorbed the abstractions as a logical edifice, you will find this book an ideal complement as you watch the builders debating models and shooting each other down, while racing for priority. They say you should never watch sausages being made, but in physics it adds that vital human dimension of context and motivation.

⭐Wonderful book, I already knew quite alot about Richard Feynman and less so about John Wheeler.After reading this very insightful story on two giants of physics I feel the need to know more about the gentleman of physics John Wheeler, his first meeting with his new student Richard Feynman is amusing and the subsequent relationship between them is fascinating, two great minds that wanted nothing more than to understand the world around them and how it works defines both of their careers.Often moving but always fascinating, great read and highly recommended.Paul Halpern has done an excellent job here, an interweaving relationship of two of the greatest minds of the 20th century brought together in one wonderful book.5/5

⭐A fascinating insight into the lives and works of 2 great scientists .

⭐Richard Feynman wechselte, nach einem mit Bravour absolvierten undergraduate Physikstudium, 1939 vom MIT an die Universität Princeton, um unter Anleitung von Eugene Wigner zu promovieren, aber die Administration ordnet Feynman kurzfristig John Wheeler als Assistent zu – eine Entscheidung, die beide später als eine der glücklichsten Fügungen ihres Lebens bezeichnen.Paul Halpern, promovierter theoretischer Physiker und Autor einer Reihe populärwissenschaftlichen Bücher, berichtet in seinem neuen Werk vom außergewöhnlich inspirierenden Zusammenwirken dieser beiden herausragenden Physiker; beide gaben sich mit Lehrbuch Erklärungen nie zufrieden und gingen physikalische Probleme oft auf ihre eigene Art und Weise an.Bereits ihre erste Arbeit beinhaltet eine Reformulierung der klassischen Elektrodynamik, die die Felder, zu Gunsten einer Fernwirkungs- Formulierung, zu eliminieren versucht, man hoffte damit der Selbstwechselwirkung vom geladenen Teilchen Herr zu werden, die für eine der Unendlichkeiten in Diracs QED verantwortlich ist. Feynman nimmt die Zeitumkehrbarkeit der Elektrodynamik ernst, und verendet gleichberechtigt retardierte und avancierte Potentiale. Aus Wheelers Bestreben, diese Ergebnisse auf eine Quantentheorie zu übertragen – etwas, was ihm nie gelang – resultiert Feynmans Formulierung der Quantenmechanik in Lagrangescher Form auf Basis eines Wirkungsprinzips, das er in seiner Dissertation diskutiert (1942) — und ihn schließlich zu seinem Pfadintegral Ansatz führt, mit dessen Hilfe er (1949-50) zu einer QED mit endlichen Resultaten gelangte, für die er später den Nobelpreis erhält, gemeinsam mit Schwinger und Tomonaga.Wenn Feynman auch als der genialere der beiden gilt, dessen Methoden ganz neue Wege zur Quantenfeldtheorie eröffneten, so ist Wheeler eine nie versiegender Quelle ungewöhnlicher Ideen und ‘verrückter’ Einfälle. So rief er eines Tags Feynman an, und berichtet ihm, dass er womöglich den Grund gefunden hätte, weswegen alle Elektronen im Universum identisch seien – sie sind einfach alle ein und das selbe Elektron , das sich ständig in der Zeit vorwärts und rückwärts bewegt, wobei rückwärts bewegte Elektronen als Positronen in Erscheinung treten. Obwohl sich diese Idee nicht halten ließ, ging die Erkenntnis, dass Positronen äquivalent zu zeitlich reversen Elektronen sind, in die Formulierung von Teilchenprozessen mittels Feynman Diagrammen ein.Später wandte sich Wheeler der Relativitätstheorie und der Quantisierung der Gravitation zu, er entwickelte die Vorstellung, dass Quantenfluktuationen die Raumzeit auf der Planck- Ebene in eine Art Schaum verwandeln, der mit Miniatur Wurmlöchern durchsetzt sein könnte; er adaptierte dazu Feynman Methode als Summe über alle mögliche Geschichten (sum over histories). Diese Kombination von ART und QM führten ihn und Bryce deWitt zu ihrer berühmten Gleichung der Quantengravitation.Immer wieder kreisen diese Ideen um das wundersame Wesen der Zeit, die Kopenhagener Standard Interpretation der Quantenmechanik kennt gleich zwei Modi der Zeit. Solange das System sich selbst überlassen ist, entwickelt sich seine Wellenfunktion deterministisch gemäß der Schrödinger Gleichung, während dessen ist Entwicklung reversible – die Zeit zyklisch; sobald das System aber beobachtet wird, kollabiert die Wellenfunktion zu einem Eigenzustand, dieser Vorgang ist irreversible – ihm entspricht eine lineare Zeit. Wheelers und Feynman eröffneten nun eine dritte Sicht, die der labyrinthischen Zeit, wobei Wheeler Vorstellung seines Schülers Hugh Everett aufgreift. Im Alter widmete sich Wheeler in zunehmenden Maße mit grundlegenden Fragen: wie kommt ‘Existenz’ zustande, oder warum gibt es Quanten. Ihm erging es aber ähnlich Moses, der einen Blick auf gelobte Land werfen durfte, es aber nicht mehr erreichte…Der Autor verschmilzt auf interessante Weise, allgemein verständliche Darstellung physikalischer Ideen mit biographischen Schilderung aus dem Leben und Wirken seiner Protagonisten. Er verwendet dabei intensiv autobiographisches Material wie Feynmans ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman’, ‘What Do Yuo Care What Other People Think’ (nach Aufzeichnung von R. Leighton) und Wheelers ‘Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam’ (mit K, Ford). Auch wenn ihm inhaltlich kleinere Fehler unterlaufen sind (etwa: die Paritäts- Verletzung der schwachen Wechselwirkungen wurde für den Beta- Zerfall von Yang und Lee 1956 vorhergesagt, und von Wu 1957 bei Experimenten mit Co-60 Isotopen bestätigt – neutrale K- Mesonen dienten hingegen Cronin und Fitch zum Nachweis der CP- Verletzung), ist dem Autor eine faszinierende Synthese gelungen, die es schafft, den Leser, in einem angenehmen erzählerischen Stil, mit der Entstehung moderner Kozepte der theoretischen Physik bekannt zu machen.

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⭐has been described in a scienticic but understandable clear way

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