Einstein's dice and Schrödinger's cat : how two great minds battled quantum randomness to create a unified theory of physics / Paul Halpern, PhD.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Halpern, Paul, 1961- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Quantum chaos.

Quantum theory--Philosophy.

Quantum theory.

Physics--Philosophy.

Physics.

Unified field theories.

Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955.

Einstein, Albert.

Schrödinger, Erwin, 1887-1961.

Schrödinger, Erwin.

Physical Description:

x, 271 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Basic Books, [2015]

Summary:

Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrodinger were friends and comrades-in-arms against what they considered the most preposterous aspects of quantum physics: its indeterminacy. Einstein famously quipped that God does not play dice with the universe, and Schrodinger is equally well known for his thought experiment about the cat in the box who ends up spread out in a probabilistic state, neither wholly alive nor wholly dead. Both of these famous images arose from these two men's dissatisfaction with quantum weirdness and with their assertion that underneath it all, there must be some essentially deterministic world. Even though it was Einstein's own theories that made quantum mechanics possible, both he and Schrodinger could not bear the idea that the universe was, at its most fundamental level, random. As the Second World War raged, both men struggled to produce a theory that would describe in full the universe's ultimate design, first as collaborators, then as competitors. They both ultimately failed in their search for a Grand Unified Theory--not only because quantum mechanics is true, but because Einstein and Schrodinger were also missing a key component: of the four forces we recognize today (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, and the strong force), only gravity and electromagnetism were known at the time. Despite their failures, though, much of modern physics remains focused on the search for a Grand Unified Theory. As Halpern explains, the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson makes the Standard Model--the closest thing we have to a unified theory--nearly complete. And while Einstein and Schrodinger tried and failed to explain everything in the cosmos through pure geometry, the development of string theory has, in its own quantum way, brought this idea back into vogue. As in so many things, even when he was wrong, Einstein couldn't help but be right.

Contents:

Allies and adversaries

The clockwork universe

The crucible of gravity

Matter waves and quantum jumps

The quest for unification

Spooky connections and zombie cats

Luck of the Irish

Physics by public relations

The last waltz : Einstein's and Schrödinger's final years

Beyond Einstein and Schrödinger : the ongoing search for unity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-254) and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Scott fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9780465075713

0465075711

OCLC:

889733751