Something Deeply Hidden

Zusatztext 105890084 Informationen zum Autor Sean Carroll Klappentext INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Science News favorite science book of 2019 As you read these words, copies of you are being created. Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world's most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of twentieth-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven't even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927. Quantum mechanics has always had obvious gaps-which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable book, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us. Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many-Worlds theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established. Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding-of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of. 1 What's Going On: Looking at the Quantum World Albert Einstein, who had a way with words as well as with equations, was the one who stuck quantum mechanics with the label it has been unable to shake ever since: spukhafte, usually translated from German to English as "spooky." If nothing else, that's the impression we get from most public discussions of quantum mechanics. We're told that it's a part of physics that is unavoidably mystifying, weird, bizarre, unknowable, strange, baffling. Spooky. Inscrutability can be alluring. Like a mysterious, sexy stranger, quantum mechanics tempts us into projecting all sorts of qualities and capacities onto it, whether they are there or not. A brief search for books with "quantum" in the title reveals the following list of purported applications: Quantum Success Quantum Leadership Quantum Consciousness Quantum Touch Quantum Yoga Quantum Eating Quantum Psychology Quantum Mind Quantum Glory Quantum Forgiveness Quantum Theology Quantum Happiness Quantum Poetry Quantum Teaching Quantum Faith Quantum Love For a branch of physics that is often described as only being relevant to microscopic processes involving subatomic particles, that's a pretty impressive r?sum?. To be fair, quantum mechanics-or "quantum physics," or "quantum theory," the labels are all interchangeable-is not only relevant to microscopic processes. It describes the whole world, from you and me to stars and galaxies, from the centers of black holes to the beginning of the universe. But it is only when we look at the world in extreme close-up that the apparent weirdness of quantum phenomena becomes unavoidable. One of the themes in this book is that q...

Praise for Something Deeply Hidden

“What makes Carroll's new project so worthwhile, though, is that while he is most certainly choosing sides in the debate, he offers us a cogent, clear, and compelling guide to the subject while letting his passion for the scientific questions shine through every page.”***—***NPR

“Enlightening and refreshingly bold.”***—Scientific American

“Something Deeply Hidden is Carroll’s ambitious and engaging foray into what quantum mechanics really means and what it tells us about physical reality.”—Science

“Carroll argues with a healthy restlessness that makes his book more interesting than so many others in the quantum physics genre.”—Forbes

“If you want to know why some people take [the Everett] approach seriously and what you can do with it, then Carroll’s latest is one of the best popular books on the market.”—Physics Today

“Be prepared to deal with some equations—and to have your mind blown.”***—***GeekWire 

“By far the most articulate and cogent defense of the Many-Worlds view in book-length depth with a close connection to the latest ongoing research.”—Science News 

“Solid arguments and engaging historical backdrop will captivate science-minded readers everywhere.”—Scientific Inquirer

“As a smart and intensely readable undergraduate class in the history of quantum theory and the nature of quantum mechanics, Something Deeply Hidden could scarcely be improved.”**—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly

“Readers in this universe (and others?) will relish the opportunity to explore the frontiers of science in the company of titans.”—Booklist

“Fans of popular science authors such as Neil deGrasse Tyson and John Gribbin will find great joy while exploring these groundbreaking concepts.”—Library Journal

“[A] challenging, provocative book . . . Moving smoothly through different topics and from objects as small as particles to those as enormous as black holes, Carroll’s exploration of quantum theory introduces readers to some of the most groundbreaking ideas in physics today.”—Publishers Weekly

“A thrilling tour through what is perhaps humankind's greatest intellectual achievement**—quantum mechanics. With bold clarity, Carroll deftly unmasks quantum weirdness to reveal a strange but utterly wondrous reality.”—Brian Greene**, professor of physics and mathematics, director of Columbia's Center for Theoretical Physics, and author of The Elegant Universe

“Sean Carroll’s immensely enjoyable Something Deeply Hidden brings readers face to face with the fundamental quantum weirdness of the universe—or should I say universes? And by the end, you may catch yourself finding quantum weirdness not all that weird.”—Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of How Not To Be Wrong
 
“Sean Carroll is always lucid and funny, gratifyingly readable, while still excavating depths. He advocates an acceptance of quantum mechanics at its most minimal, its most austere—appealing to the allure of the pristine. The consequence is an annihilation of our conventional notions of reality in favor of an utterly surreal world of Many-Worlds. Sean includes us in the battle between a simple reality versus a multitude of realities that feels barely on the periphery of human comprehension. He includes us in the ideas, the philosophy, and the foment of revolution. A fascinating and important book.”—Janna Levin, professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College and author of Black Hole Blues

“Sean Carroll beautifully clarifies the debate about the foundations of quantum mechanics and champions the most elegant, courageous approach: the astonishing 'Many-Worlds' interpretation. His explanations of its pros and cons are clear, evenhanded, and philosophically gob smacking.”—Steven Strogatz, professor of mathematics at Cornell Universi…