Quantum Science

“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it’s not really telling us that “weird” things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world: rather, everything is quantum. But if quantum mechanics is correct, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don’t seem obvious or right at all—or even possible. An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means—and what it doesn’t. Science writer Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience. Over the past decade it has become clear that quantum physics is less a theory about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information and knowledge—about what can be known, and how we can know it. Discoveries and experiments over the past few decades have called into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and, ultimately, of knowledge itself. The quantum world Ball shows us isn’t a different world. It is our world, and if anything deserves to be called “weird,” it’s us.

"A thorough, illuminating exploration of the most consequential controversy raging in modern science." --New York Times Book Review An Editor's Choice, New York Times Book Review Longlisted for PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Longlisted for Goodreads Choice Award Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's solipsistic and poorly reasoned Copenhagen interpretation. Indeed, questioning it has long meant professional ruin, yet some daring physicists, such as John Bell, David Bohm, and Hugh Everett, persisted in seeking the true meaning of quantum mechanics. What Is Real? is the gripping story of this battle of ideas and the courageous scientists who dared to stand up for truth. "An excellent, accessible account." --Wall Street Journal "Splendid. . . . Deeply detailed research, accompanied by charming anecdotes about the scientists." --Washington Post

Everything around us - trees, buildings, food, light, water, air and even ourselves - is composed of minute particles, smaller than a nanometre (a billionth of a metre). Quantum physics is the science of these particles and without it none of our electronic devices, from smartphones to computers and microwave ovens, would exist. But quantum physics also pushes us to the very boundaries of what we know about science, reality and the structure of the universe. The world of quantum physics is an amazing place, where quantum particles can do weird and wonderful things, acting totally unlike the objects we experience in day-to-day life. How can atoms exist in two places at once? And just how can a cat be dead and alive at the same time? Find out more with this entertaining illustrated guide to the fascinating, mysterious world of quantum physics.

Long-listed for the 2016 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "An important book that provides insight into key new developments in our understanding of the nature of space, time and the universe. It will repay careful study." --John Gribbin, The Wall Street Journal "An endlessly surprising foray into the current mother of physics' many knotty mysteries, the solving of which may unveil the weirdness of quantum particles, black holes, and the essential unity of nature." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time: nonlocality-the ability of two particles to act in harmony no matter how far apart they may be. It appears to be almost magical. Einstein grappled with this oddity and couldn't come to terms with it, describing it as "spooky action at a distance." More recently, the mystery has deepened as other forms of nonlocality have been uncovered. This strange occurrence, which has direct connections to black holes, particle collisions, and even the workings of gravity, holds the potential to undermine our most basic understandings of physical reality. If space isn't what we thought it was, then what is it? In Spooky Action at a Distance, George Musser sets out to answer that question, offering a provocative exploration of nonlocality and a celebration of the scientists who are trying to explain it. Musser guides us on an epic journey into the lives of experimental physicists observing particles acting in tandem, astronomers finding galaxies that look statistically identical, and cosmologists hoping to unravel the paradoxes surrounding the big bang. He traces the often contentious debates over nonlocality through major discoveries and disruptions of the twentieth century and shows how scientists faced with the same undisputed experimental evidence develop wildly different explanations for that evidence. Their conclusions challenge our understanding of not only space and time but also the origins of the universe-and they suggest a new grand unified theory of physics. Delightfully readable, Spooky Action at a Distance is a mind-bending voyage to the frontiers of modern physics that will change the way we think about reality.

Named a Best Book of 2021 by the Financial Times and a Best Science Book of 2021 by The Guardian “Rovelli is a genius and an amazing communicator… This is the place where science comes to life.” ―Neil Gaiman “One of the warmest, most elegant and most lucid interpreters to the laity of the dazzling enigmas of his discipline...[a] momentous book” ―John Banville, The Wall Street Journal A startling new look at quantum theory, from the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, and Anaximander. One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, he examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving. Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution. Full of alarming ideas (ghost waves, distant objects that seem to be magically connected, cats that appear both dead and alive), quantum physics has led to countless discoveries and technological advancements. Today our understanding of the world is based on this theory, yet it is still profoundly mysterious. As scientists and philosophers continue to fiercely debate the meaning of the theory, Rovelli argues that its most unsettling contradictions can be explained by seeing the world as fundamentally made of relationships rather than substances. We and everything around us exist only in our interactions with one another. This bold idea suggests new directions for thinking about the structure of reality and even the nature of consciousness. Rovelli makes learning about quantum mechanics an almost psychedelic experience. Shifting our perspective once again, he takes us on a riveting journey through the universe so we can better comprehend our place in it.

Ages 0 to 3 years Quantum Physics for Babies by Chris Ferrie is a colourfully simple introduction to the principle that gives quantum physics its name. Baby will find out that energy is "quantized" and the weird world of atoms never comes to a standstill. It is never too early to become a quantum physicist! This is the first in a series of books designed to stimulate your baby and introduce them to the world of science. Also coming in May are:  Newtonian Physics for Babies  General Relativity for Babies  Rocket Science for Babies

Written by world experts in the foundations of quantum mechanics and its applications to social science, this book shows how elementary quantum mechanical principles can be applied to decision-making paradoxes in psychology and used in modelling information in finance and economics. The book starts with a thorough overview of some of the salient differences between classical, statistical and quantum mechanics. It presents arguments on why quantum mechanics can be applied outside of physics and defines quantum social science. The issue of the existence of quantum probabilistic effects in psychology, economics and finance is addressed and basic questions and answers are provided. Aimed at researchers in economics and psychology, as well as physics, basic mathematical preliminaries and elementary concepts from quantum mechanics are defined in a self-contained way.

A quantum origin of life? -- Quantum mechanics and emergence -- Quantum coherence and the search for the first replicator -- Ultrafast quantum dynamics in photosynthesis -- Modelling quantum decoherence in biomolecules -- Molecular evolution -- Memory depends on the cytoskeleton, but is it quantum? -- Quantum metabolism and allometric scaling relations in biology -- Spectroscopy of the genetic code -- Towards understanding the origin of genetic languages -- Can arbitrary quantum systems undergo self-replication? -- A semi-quantum version of the game of life -- Evolutionary stability in quantum games -- Quantum transmemetic intelligence -- Dreams versus reality : plenary debate session on quantum computing -- Plenary debate: quantum effects in biology : trivial or not? -- Nontrivial quantum effects in biology : a skeptical physicists' view -- That's life! : the geometry of p electron clouds.

Most of us are unaware of how much we depend on quantum mechanics on a day-to-day basis. Using illustrations and examples from science fiction pulp magazines and comic books, The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics explains the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics that underlie the world we live in. Watch a Video

This book offers an introduction into quantum machine learning research, covering approaches that range from "near-term" to fault-tolerant quantum machine learning algorithms, and from theoretical to practical techniques that help us understand how quantum computers can learn from data. Among the topics discussed are parameterized quantum circuits, hybrid optimization, data encoding, quantum feature maps and kernel methods, quantum learning theory, as well as quantum neural networks. The book aims at an audience of computer scientists and physicists at the graduate level onwards. The second edition extends the material beyond supervised learning and puts a special focus on the developments in near-term quantum machine learning seen over the past few years.