The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments by Jim Baggott
My fascination with the quantum mechanics, especially the foundations of the quantum mechanics, continues. In the past two years, I am trying to teach myself quantum physics, but without the math. The mathematics associated with quantum physics are excruciating difficult and, after taking a couple of MIT classes on the subject, I can only make a few very basic calculations. But I have some understanding of quantum physics concepts.
I will not go through the process to get an understanding of quantum physics here, just to introduce you to a book, about quantum mechanics, that I read recently (More books about quantum mechanics here and here). Jim Baggott’s The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments is the story of of quantum physics in general, “a biography of quantum theory,” as it is described by the author himself, separated in 40 chapters. It covers events and the progress in quantum mechanics from the mid-1920s to about the end of the 20th century, before the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN.
It’s an excellent popular science book to read, very clear, informative and well-written. Baggott, dips into the debates and discoveries related to the general problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics and discusses briefly the theoretical research on speculative ideas, such as the string theory and the loop quantum gravity theory.
The story of quantum theory is fascinating and still unfinished. There are so many things that we don’t understand yet. Let’s hope that soon we’ll have some clues about the next steps. We might even get into a position of replacing quantum theory with some whole new theory.
Jim Baggott writes:
"Great moments of inspired illumination may be followed by long periods of confused fumbling in the dark. It might be argued that crisis is a natural and preferred state. For only a crisis is likely to sponsor the kind of outrageous ideas need to take our understanding of the world forward to the next stage."