The Quantum Moment: How Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg Taught Us to Love Uncertainty

Download or read book The Quantum Moment: How Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg Taught Us to Love Uncertainty written by Robert P. Crease and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-10-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A very fun way to learn about where quantum physics comes from and the strange, even astonishing places it has gone." —Peter Galison, Harvard University, author of Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps From multiverses and quantum leaps to Schrödinger’s cat and time travel, quantum mechanics has irreversibly shaped the popular imagination. Entertainers and writers from Lady Gaga to David Foster Wallace take advantage of its associations and nuances. In The Quantum Moment, philosopher Robert P. Crease and physicist Alfred Scharff Goldhaber recount the fascinating story of how the quantum jumped from physics into popular culture, with brief explorations of the underlying math and physics concepts and descriptions of the fiery disputes among figures including Einstein, Schrödinger, and Niels Bohr. Understanding and appreciating quantum imagery, its uses and abuses, is part of what it means to be an educated person in the twenty-first century. The Quantum Moment serves as an indispensable guide.