the Quantum Revolution

As you read these words the world around you seems pretty solid, pretty stable: The device you're using seems to exist on its own, with its own properties of shape and weight and color. So does the chair you're sitting in, the table your coffee cup is resting on and the coffee cup itself.

But that solidity and independence is a kind illusion or, at least, so says the very physics that lets these words appear on the screen of your computer, smart phone or tablet.

That physics, called quantum mechanics, represents the most powerful theory human beings have ever developed. And while we scientists know how to use it to make all those digital devices, we do not know what it means. We don't know what it's telling us about the fundamental nature of reality. It is into that chasm that acclaimed theoretical physicist and author Carlo Rovelli leaps with his new book Helgoland. Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution.

It's a leap you will want to take with him.

Quantum mechanics is now more than 100 years old. It was born at the turn of the 20th century as physicists probed the atomic and subatomic realms. Much to their chagrin, reality turned out to be a lot weirder at those scales than in the "classical" realm of ordinary experience. The theory they developed to control the objects of their experiments was an intellectual triumph. Almost all of the technological miracles we live with now — from CAT scans to computers — can be traced to that achievement. But quantum mechanics never really "explained" the strangeness of the microworld. It just gave us a method for making incredibly accurate predictions and building stuff.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...