The book discusses the development of quantum physics through the lives and works of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and other physicists. It explores how Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle and matrix mechanics. Bohr is also discussed for his groundbreaking ideas. The book provides insights into the process of scientific discovery in early 20th century physics.
The book discusses the development of quantum physics through the lives and works of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and other physicists. It explores how Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle and matrix mechanics. Bohr is also discussed for his groundbreaking ideas. The book provides insights into the process of scientific discovery in early 20th century physics.
The book discusses the development of quantum physics through the lives and works of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and other physicists. It explores how Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle and matrix mechanics. Bohr is also discussed for his groundbreaking ideas. The book provides insights into the process of scientific discovery in early 20th century physics.
The book discusses the development of quantum physics through the lives and works of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and other physicists. It explores how Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle and matrix mechanics. Bohr is also discussed for his groundbreaking ideas. The book provides insights into the process of scientific discovery in early 20th century physics.
Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for
The Soul of Science
Pedro G. Ferreira
Physics Today 60 (8), 57 (2007);
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2774099
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Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics; The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists, 1945—1949 Physics Today (March 2008) The principals behind quantum physics Uncertainty Lindley tackles a similarly ubiquitous concept: entropy. He tells a compelling great young physicists who follow. Einstein comes across as the cantan- Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, narrative of Ludwig Boltzmann and kerous old uncle, overtaken by events and the Struggle for the Soul how the troubled physicist slowly came and skeptical of the path modern of Science up with his view of statistical physics. physics is taking. He writes of Heisen- Boltzmann’s Atom portrays a complex berg’s seminal paper: “Heisenberg has David Lindley Doubleday, New York, 2007. $26.00 man caught up in the fight between the laid a large quantum egg. In Göttingen (257 pp.). ISBN 978-0-385-51506-1 atomists and the phenomenologists. they believe it (I don’t).” Although, over His erratic career path in physics and the years, Einstein was a source of many Reviewed by Pedro G. Ferreira disparaging remarks about the new the- his untimely death were a result of his If I were to pick one idea from modern lifelong battle with depression. The def- ory, he did at some point engage with it. physics that has seeped into popular For example, with Boris Podolsky and inition of entropy, the idea of irre- culture, it would be the Heisenberg un- Nathan Rosen, he came up with a versibility, and the birth of the quantum certainty principle. More than Albert thought experiment that neatly showed emerge from a life steeped in irra- Einstein’s theory of relativity, it pops up some of the strange and, to him, unac- tionality. The mix of emotion and high in the most unexpected places. David ceptable consequences of quantum me- concept worked incredibly well. Lindley rolls out a few choice examples chanics: correlations of physical proper- In Uncertainty, Lindley tries the same toward the end of ties at spacelike separations. approach, albeit on a grander scale. To his new book, Un- Uncertainty is a mess of ideas and faithfully narrate the development of certainty: Einstein, characters, a compelling read. Lindley quantum physics, he had to weave to- Heisenberg, Bohr, has successfully created an arc and has gether the stories of numerous charac-
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and the Struggle for been careful not to overly systematize ters. There is, of course, Werner Heisen- the Soul of Science. the events that flesh it out. He has been berg, an ascetic young man whom Niels One involves a able to profitably give us a real sense of Bohr described as “a little peasant news editor com- the process of discovery in the early boy, . . . very quiet, friendly and shy.” menting on embed- 20th century, as Europe hurtled toward Espousing the approach of Max Born, ded news reporting war and the repression of intellectual his mentor, that a proper theory must be in Iraq, claiming life. Chaos was the essential back- expressed in terms of formal mathemat- that “the more precisely the media ground to the emergence of the quan- ics, Heisenberg came up with the matrix measures individual events in a war, tum, the gem of modern physics. Edi- the more blurry the warfare appears to formulation of quantum mechanics. It was, he claimed, an attempt “to obtain tors, journalists, and scriptwriters the observer.” Another is Claudia Jean should read the book before they cherry “C. J.” Cregg, the press officer in the tel- foundations of quantum mechanics based exclusively on relationships be- pick any more quantum concepts. They evision series The West Wing, who is will enjoy it and will look less foolish. being followed by a “fly on the wall” tween quantities that are in principle ob- servable.” One of those relationships is filmmaker and is asked if it has been a typical day at the White House: “I don’t the inability to simultaneously observe Quantum Liquids have to tell you about the Heisenberg the position and momentum of a parti- Bose Condensation and principle,” she responds knowingly. cle: the uncertainty principle. Cooper Pairing in Of course, I should have thrown the Bohr plays a lead role. Lindley gives Condensed-Matter Systems book across the room in anger, but I readers an insight into Bohr’s ability to come up with groundbreaking ideas A. J. Leggett didn’t. Because Lindley has done a Oxford U. Press, New York, 2006. pretty good job in sorting out the tan- based on broad concepts and assump- tions that lead to hard numbers. Yet, as $70.00 (388 pp.). ISBN 978-0-19- gled ideas of quantum physics, his book 8526438 just might lead the general public to un- Lindley tells us, “for a man counted derstand what the principle is all about. among the great theorists of physics, In Quantum Liquids: Bose Condensation In his earlier book, Boltzmann’s Bohr had remarkably little ability in the and Cooper Pairing in Condensed-Matter Atom: The Great Debate That Launched a higher realms of mathematics.” It was Systems, Anthony Leggett has at- Revolution in Physics (Free Press, 2001), when he joined forces with the mathe- tempted to produce a graduate text- matically inclined Arnold Sommerfeld book for the Oxford University Press Pedro G. Ferreira is a reader in physics that the full explanatory power of series on the various examples of at the University of Oxford in the UK. Bohr’s hydrogen atom was unleashed. macroscopic quantum-coherent states His interests are in cosmology, the early Bohr comes across in the book as the in condensed-matter physics. Chap- universe, the cosmic microwave back- godfather of the quantum, always alert ters are devoted to liquid helium-4, ground, and astroparticle physics. He to developments, sometimes confused Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) in is the author of The State of the Universe: by the different formulations, but a cold atoms, classical superconductivity, A Primer in Modern Cosmology (Wei- guiding light to Heisenberg, Erwin liquid helium-3, and cuprate supercon- denfeld and Nicholson, 2006). Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and the ductivity; a final, eighth chapter covers
