I am totally fascinated by the quest of how Nature does it. In particular, I love the fact that humans managed to enters the strange world of atoms and photons by just using their brute intellectual force and imagination. This world obeys precise rules, but very different ones from those we get used to since childhood. For example, the laws that govern the microscopic world allow for indeterminacy and randomness. Moreover, some random events may manifest themselves at several locations at once, leading to the phenomenon of quantum non-locality. I am very fortunate that I could spend all my professional time on such fascinating conceptual questions, combined with highly timely new technologies.
I wrote
Quantum Chance: Nonlocality, Teleportation and Other Quantum Marvels
This delightful book tells the story of the development of quantum entanglement, the mysterious link that can connect distant objects without anything carrying information from one to the other. As a physicist specializing in quantum mechanics, I recommend that book because, in addition to some history, it nicely illustrated how physics is done by professional researchers.
In The Age of Entanglement, Louisa Gilder brings to life one of the pivotal debates in twentieth century physics. In 1935, Albert Einstein famously showed that, according to the quantum theory, separated particles could act as if intimately connected–a phenomenon which he derisively described as “spooky action at a distance.” In that same year, Erwin Schrödinger christened this correlation “entanglement.” Yet its existence was mostly ignored until 1964, when the Irish physicist John Bell demonstrated just how strange this entanglement really was. Drawing on the papers, letters, and memoirs of the twentieth century’s greatest physicists, Gilder both humanizes and dramatizes…
This little book introduces quantum physics at the level of high-school students. It starts with semi-transparent mirrors and interferometers. With figures, but no equations, the reader becomes familiar with wave-particle duality. Next, quantum cryptography, some experiments, and even quantum teleportation are presented in a truly pedestrian way. I much enjoyed reading this book.
Quantum physics is often perceived as a weird and abstract theory, which physicists must use in order to make correct predictions. But many recent experiments have shown that the weirdness of the theory simply mirrors the weirdness of phenomena: it is Nature itself, and not only our description of it, that behaves in an astonishing way. This book selects those, among these typical quantum phenomena, whose rigorous description requires neither the formalism, nor an important background in physics.
The first part of the book deals with the phenomenon of single-particle interference, covering the historical questions of wave-particle duality, objective randomness…
This is a wonderful and highly convincing analysis of quantum non-locality, written by one of the top expert philosophers of science. Personally, I learned a lot from this book, which clearly influenced me and helped me to become an expert in the field. The book goes deep into explaining why we live in a world full of non-local correlations and what that means. It analyses in depth the tension between quantum non-locality and relativity. Moreover, it contains several original ideas, like, e.g., how many bits of communication are needed to simulate quantum non-locality. It is still today a very timely book.
Modern physics was born from two great revolutions: relativity and quantum theory. Relativity imposed a locality constraint on physical theories: since nothing can go faster than light, very distant events cannot influence one another. Only in the last few decades has it become clear that quantum theory violates this constraint. The work of J. S. Bell has demonstrated that no local theory can return the predictions of quantum theory. Thus it would seem that the central pillars of modern physics are contradictory. Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity examines the nature and possible resolution of this conflict. Beginning with accurate but non-technical…
John Steward Bell is one of the giants of the twentieth-century sciences, sitting beside Einstein, Bohr, Shannon. I don’t hesitate to predict that history will set him at the firmament of all sciences, thanks to his revolutionary discovery of quantum non-locality. This biography is a must for everyone willing to understand the personality of John Bell, the father of what became after his sudden death the second quantum revolution.
This book gives a readable non-mathematical account of the upbringing, education and academic achievement of John Stewart Bell, the celebrated physicist from Belfast, who was born in 1928.
Bell has become famous for what he described as his 'hobby', analysing the fundamental aspects of quantum theory, where he clarified a long-standing debate between the two most important figures of twentieth century physics, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, and showed that, contrary to belief over the previous thirty years, quantum theory could be supplemented with extra 'hidden variables'. His crucial 'Bell's Theorem' or 'Bell's Inequalities' demonstrated a contradiction between quantum theory…
This book tells the fascinating story of the people and events behind the turbulent changes in attitudes to quantum theory in the second half of the 20th century. Science is sometimes quite abstract. But it is made by very concrete persons whose characters shape the various scientific communities.
This book tells the fascinating story of the people and events behind the turbulent changes in attitudes to quantum theory in the second half of the 20th century. The huge success of quantum mechanics as a predictive theory has been accompanied, from the very beginning, by doubts and controversy about its foundations and interpretation. This book looks in detail at how research on foundations evolved after WWII, when it was revived, until the mid 1990s, when most of this research merged into the technological promise of quantum information. It is the story of the quantum dissidents, the scientists who brought…
I am a specialist in quantum nonlocality, teleportation, and applications like quantum cryptography. With this concise book I want to give everyone a chance to understand these fascinating features of quantum mechanics, without equations but also without hiding the conceptual difficulties. Everyone willing to make an intellectual effort should be given the chance to share my fascination for contemporary quantum theory and its potential applications.
I’m an OB/GYN, passionate about adventuring beyond what’s expected. This has led me to pivot multiple times in my career, now focusing on writing. I’ve written a play, The Post-Roe Monologues, to elevate women’s stories. I cherish the curiosity that drives outer and inner exploration, and I love memoirs that skillfully weave the two. The books on this list feature extraordinary women who took risks, left comfort and safety, and battled vulnerability to step into the unknown. These authors moved beyond the stories they’d believed about themselves–or that others told about them. They invite you to think about living fuller and bigger lives.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
The team attempts a new route up the East Face without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappear during their summit attempt, Zieman reaches the knife edge of her limits and digs deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice.
The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain, which had only been successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first large team, Mimi Zieman and her team would climb without using supplemental oxygen or porter support. While the unpredictable weather and high altitude of 29,035 feet make climbing Everest perilous in any condition, attempting a new route, with no idea of what obstacles lay ahead, was especially audacious. Team members were expected to push themselves to their…
