Quantum Legacies
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780226819990
Paperback|9780226819990
✨ Featured Offer
Overview
A series of engaging essays that explore iconic moments of discovery and debate in physicists' ongoing quest to understand the quantum world.
The ideas at the root of quantum theory remain stubbornly, famously bizarre: a solid world reduced to puffs of probability; particles that tunnel through walls; cats suspended in zombielike states, neither alive nor dead; and twinned particles that share entangled fates. For more than a century, physicists have grappled with these conceptual uncertainties while enmeshed in the larger uncertainties of the social and political worlds around them, a time pocked by the rise of fascism, cataclysmic world wars, and a new nuclear age.
In Quantum Legacies, David Kaiser introduces readers to iconic episodes in physicists' still-unfolding quest to understand space, time, and matter at their most fundamental. In a series of vibrant essays, Kaiser takes us inside moments of discovery and debate among the great minds of the era--Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Stephen Hawking, and many more who have indelibly shaped our understanding of nature--as they have tried to make sense of a messy world.
Ranging across space and time, the episodes span the heady 1920s, the dark days of the 1930s, the turbulence of the Cold War, and the peculiar political realities that followed. In those eras as in our own, researchers' ambition has often been to transcend the vagaries of here and now, to contribute lasting insights into how the world works that might reach beyond a given researcher's limited view. In Quantum Legacies, Kaiser unveils the difficult and unsteady work required to forge some shared understanding between individuals and across generations, and in doing so, he illuminates the deep ties between scientific exploration and the human condition.
The ideas at the root of quantum theory remain stubbornly, famously bizarre: a solid world reduced to puffs of probability; particles that tunnel through walls; cats suspended in zombielike states, neither alive nor dead; and twinned particles that share entangled fates. For more than a century, physicists have grappled with these conceptual uncertainties while enmeshed in the larger uncertainties of the social and political worlds around them, a time pocked by the rise of fascism, cataclysmic world wars, and a new nuclear age.
In Quantum Legacies, David Kaiser introduces readers to iconic episodes in physicists' still-unfolding quest to understand space, time, and matter at their most fundamental. In a series of vibrant essays, Kaiser takes us inside moments of discovery and debate among the great minds of the era--Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Stephen Hawking, and many more who have indelibly shaped our understanding of nature--as they have tried to make sense of a messy world.
Ranging across space and time, the episodes span the heady 1920s, the dark days of the 1930s, the turbulence of the Cold War, and the peculiar political realities that followed. In those eras as in our own, researchers' ambition has often been to transcend the vagaries of here and now, to contribute lasting insights into how the world works that might reach beyond a given researcher's limited view. In Quantum Legacies, Kaiser unveils the difficult and unsteady work required to forge some shared understanding between individuals and across generations, and in doing so, he illuminates the deep ties between scientific exploration and the human condition.
| ISBN-13 | 9780226819990 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 022681999X |
| Weight | 1.16 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 5.50 x 1.30 x 8.50 In |
| List Price | $18.00 |
| Edition | 1st Edition |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Pages | 360 pages |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
| Published On | 2022-06-16 |
View All Offers
Sort by:
Price
Condition
Seller
Seller Comments
Price
Used, Like New
Seller details
Open Books Ltd
Chicago, IL, USA
Open Books is a nonprofit social venture that provides literacy experiences for thousands of readers...
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
Used, Good
Seller details
BayStateBooks
North Smithfield, RI, USA
The book is in good condition with all pages and cover intact including the dust jacket if origina...
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
✨ Brand New
Seller details
Alibris
Sparks, NV, USA
Print on demand Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 360 p. Contains: Unspecified.
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
Brand New
Seller details
indoo.com
Avenel, NJ, USA
9780226819990.
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026
Brand New
Seller details
GreatBookPrices-
Columbia, MD, USA
100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition. We offer expedited shipping to all US locat...
Free delivery by: 31 Mar 2026