Tales of the Quantum by Art Hobson
Hands down the best resource for realistically interpreted quantum physics. Tales of the Quantum is Art Hobson's swan song to a life lived studying and teaching quantum physics. He is the professor emeritus of physics at the University of Arkansas and he has authored a remarkable book.
It is one that attempts to resolve the numerous conflicts between physicists regarding how to interpret quantum mechanics as well as those between philosophers of science and pseudo-scientists who have written commercially successful books that take advantage of the apparent mysteries in quantum mechanics.
A refreshing realist, Hobson sets out to explain the relationship between the wave and particle aspects of quantum objects, to defend the basic randomness in quantum processes, to clarify how something can exist in two places at once, and to comprehend quantum jumps. He also addresses the measurement issue from the standpoint of decoherence, according to which "nothing ever happens" without the collapse of the global wavefunction.
The book includes a number of superb graphics to clarify the perplexing experimental findings and even offers a detailed explanation that aims to solve the famous zombie-cat paradox: he calls it The Local-State Solution to the Problem of Definite Outcomes. With this incredibly readable explanation, Hobson covers the entire spectrum of significant quantum processes.It marks the first of the best books on quantum theory and you should probably read it.
Paradox Lost - Images of the Quantum by Philip R. Wallace
My second favorite book on the subject is Philip Wallace's Paradox Lost. It is written in the same spirit as Tales of the Quantum as Wallace is also a realist regarding the "what" of quantum theory.
In Paradox Lost, Wallace dispels the notion that quantum theory is an unfinished, philosophically flawed, and self-contradictory theory by arguing that it is possibly the most complete, well-verified, and successful theory in the history of science.
In plain language, Wallace explores the many "paradoxes" and "difficulties" claimed about quantum mechanics that anyone with a basic understanding of science can understand, and he demonstrates that they are caused by excesses of interpretation that have been placed on the theory.
Every concept he explains he does so with insightful lucidity and imparts to the patient reader a deep understanding of quantum physics. An especially poignant chapter, De Broglie and Electron Waves, focuses on the importance of understanding wave phase when trying to wrestle with these complicated concepts. Another chapter, Symmetry and Point Particles, makes the case that they don't exist at all. Particles I mean. Wallace writes "the underlying foundation of QFT is, true to its namesake, fields. Particles become quanta of energy not localized in space or time, which can only interact, or be created or annihilated, in their entirety." Paradox Lost is certainly one of the best books on quantum theory.
A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design by Frank Wilczek
Another one of the best books on quantum theory is Frank Wilczek's A Beautiful Question. It is a tome whose breadth is wide. Wilczek is a Nobel laureate who received the prestigious award for his work in quantum chromodynamics. He does not mess about.
Throughout human history, all manner of people have pondered Wilczek’s “beautiful question:” Does Nature embody beautiful ideas?
Beginning in ancient Greece, Wilczek guides us from Plato and Pythagoras to the present, Wilczek's intuition to search for a deeper order of beauty in nature served as the impetus for his revolutionary work in quantum physics. This is the fundamental logic of the cosmos, and it is no coincidence that it is also the driving force behind everything we find beautiful and inspirational.
Wilczek is hardly the only great scientist to use beauty as his compass when plotting his course. As he reveals in A Beautiful Question, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras and the ancient belief in the music of the spheres to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of contemporary physics. Wilczek takes us right up to the cutting edge of knowledge right now, where the fundamental principles underlying even the most absurd quantum theories may be applied. Fascinatingly, he shows how the equations governing musical instruments and sound are almost identical to those governing atoms and light, and the subatomic “particles” that make up the majority of our mass are governed by straightforward geometric symmetries.
Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. It is a dazzling and important work from one of our best thinkers, whose humor and infectious sense of wonder animate every page. Yes: The world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls.
Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime by Sean Carroll
Although I do not share Carroll's interpretation of quantum theory, he has nevertheless written an excellent account of quantum physics. Carroll is an Everettian, a "Many-Worlds" theorist. What this gets right is that it is "realist" in that he holds the universal wavefunction to be physically actual. He also sides on fields being the basic reality.
Where he goes wrong is in considering "measurement," because everyone of which is thought to bifurcate the wavefunction, doubling it over and over again while it branches off into indefinitely many copies of the world. This is too much for me. I hold the view that "measurements" are nothing but interactions between quantum systems. They happen everywhere all the time and do not split the universal wavefunction but instead help to ground and define it. Upon wavefunction collapse, all other possibilities, including the worlds that may have been, vanish.
From the amazon page: As you listen to these words, copies of you are being created. Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
Quantum mechanics has always had obvious gaps - which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable audiobook, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us.
Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many Worlds Theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world, the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established.
Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding - of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman
Feynman possessed an extraordinary talent for explaining difficult concepts to the general public. Here he provides the definitive introduction to quantum electrodynamics (hence the title QED). QED forms that part of quantum field theory that describes the interactions of light with matter — of how photons interact with and become electrons and vice versa.
Instead of employing advanced mathematics, Feynman uses everyday language, spatial concepts, visualizations, and his renowned "Feynman diagrams" to clearly and humorously communicate both the substance and spirit of QED to the layman. Anthony Zee's introduction places Feynman’s book and his seminal contribution to QED in historical context and further highlights Feynman’s uniquely appealing and illuminating style.
If you enjoyed this list please consider checking out my book:
The image used for this post is Cameron Gray's Experience So Lucid Discovery So Clear
