A daring new vision of quantum theory from one of the leading minds of
contemporary physics Quantum physics is the golden child of modern science.
It is the basis of our understanding of atoms, radiation, and so much else,
from elementary particles and basic forces to the behavior of materials.
But for a century it has also been the problem child of science: it has
been plagued by intense disagreements between its inventors, strange
paradoxes, and implications that seem like the stuff of fantasy. Whether
it's Schrödinger's cat--a creature that is simultaneously dead and alive--
or a belief that the world does not exist independently of our observations
of it, quantum theory challenges our fundamental assumptions about reality.
In Beyond the Quantum, theoretical physicist Lee Smolin provocatively
argues that the problems which have bedeviled quantum physics since its
inception are unsolved and unsolvable, for the simple reason that the
theory is incomplete. There is more to quantum physics, waiting to be
discovered. Our task--if we are to have simple answers to our simple
questions about the universe we live in--must be to go beyond quantum
mechanics to a description of the world on an atomic scale that makes
sense. In this vibrant and accessible book, Smolin takes us on a journey
through the basics of quantum physics, introducing the stories of the
experiments and figures that have transformed our understanding of the
universe, before wrestling with the puzzles and conundrums that the quantum
world presents. Along the way, he illuminates the existing theories that
might solve these problems, guiding us towards a vision of the quantum that
embraces common sense realism. If we are to have any hope of completing the
revolution that Einstein began nearly a century ago, we must go beyond
quantum mechanics to find a theory that will give us a complete description
of nature. In Beyond the Quantum, Lee Smolin brings us a step closer to
resolving one of the greatest scientific controversies of our age.