Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum

Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum by Lee Smolin 

Quantum mechanics is hard to understand. It often seems to go in the face of what we observe. However, it is possible to be realist and understand quantum mechanics. There were some that put forth the postulates, but did ended up losing popularity to the non-realists. (Einstein was a realist, but he struggled to get a good explanation.) Today, we may need a revolution to adopt a new framework that truly covers everything together. Some will likely fail, but we need new ideas to come to final solution. The book says as much about the pitfalls of academic culture as it does with the quantum mechanics. Academia can get stuck in its ways and find it difficult to move on.

Quantum Space: Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe

Quantum Space: Loop Quantum Gravity and the Search for the Structure of Space, Time, and the Universe by Jim Baggott

Theoretical physics is something that smart people work on. Occasionally it has implications in the real world. After reading this book, I did not feel I had a better understanding of Quantum loop gravity. I did feel it was something that is still being debated that involved a different way of looking at the universe. Some things like gravitons could theoretically exist to help explain things, but would be almost impossible to measure. A lot of the work comes down to the details the get hidden away in the work of Einstein and Newton. It seems there are a some artificial complexities in the nomenclature. There is a lot of insularity in the theoretical physics community. The book focuses on a few physicists - mostly in Italy and Pennsylvania - as they use different methods to explore the physical world. It seems we are a long way from having a definite answer.

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Princeton Science Library Book 33)

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Princeton Science Library Book 33) by Richard P. Feynman

This is a very accessible introduction to Quantum Electro-dynamics. The tone is very down to earth. Most of the sections are very understandable. However, a few bits went above my head. (Though I feel I could have grasped them if I spent a little more time.) Light discussions seems straightforward. Quarks are quarks and get a little weird, especially when you get to color and spin. There is a final bit that explores "modern ideas", and then an appendix that looks how things have changed. He even admits that physicists love to fit things in their current models. Maybe the world does reduce down, or maybe it is just the way scientists look at it.

Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different

Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different by Philip Ball

Quantum mechanics is weird. It seems to go against how we observe in the world. In our normal everyday life, traditional physics does seem to do a good job. However, quantum physics help explain some of the details that tie things together. Observations are not "free". Anytime we try to observe something we change it in some way. This makes science challenging.

This book was one of the more clearly written ones on thee subject. It acknowledges the weirdness and does a good job elucidating principles in context.

The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond

The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond by Christophe Galfard

This book is one of the best explorations of theoretical physics I have seen. It tells of the "story" of the person (you) as you explore space and the universe through all time. There is "time travel" as we attempt to gain a better understanding of concepts as well as "see" things first hand. I still have trouble grasping some of the details, but this book has done better at exploring some of the modern scientific thoughts than any other I have read. It covers areas from quarks to antimatter to the expansion of the entire universe.

Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life

Storm in a Teacup provides a somewhat serious look at the science behind our life. It goes from the micro-level all the way up to geology and cosmology. There is a lot of good material here, with our small real-life experiences and how they relate to other large scale occurrences. (The Teacup is really similar to a storm.)

Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity

The key phrase in the title is "Where to Find Them". This is not just a theoretical math book, but a book of math with a focus of real application. We can find minutely small numbers as we drill down to the smallest building blocks that make up matter. We can also go to huge numbers as we add all those up or start exploring the immense reaches of the universe and different parallel ones. (The "multiverse of madness" comes to mind.) There are also very large numbers like googol, googol-plex and Graham's number. (I still have trouble getting my mind wrapped around Knuth's multiple-uparrow notation. It is just "really big") There is ample discussion of the scientists that came to important conclusions. (It seems almost fitting that some would go mad contemplating infinity.) Sometimes it is the "untrained" mathematicians that have come up with great insights.  

What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

The title says it all. This books presents serious answers to plenty of absurd questions. What if the earth were a giant eyeball? What if it rained gumdrops and lemon drops? How about a lava lamp made of lava? These and many other questions are answered with science as well as humor, complete with illustrations. In the process, you slyly get a better understanding of Newtonian and relativistic physics as well as many other bits of science. Most of the questions are answered with a few pages of detail. There are many "quick sections" where questions are presented without detailed answers. It is tough to decide whether I should feel guilty for escapism or happy that I learned a lot.

The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe

Stephon Alexander had two passions: Music and Physics. In his memoir he ties them together. The book takes us through his time as a child, with his family encouraging him to become a pianist. He decided other instruments were preferable and had a preference for the music of John Coltrane. He also loved science. He would combine the experience of Jazz improvisation with theoretical astrophysics. In both there are some basic rules that keep some order. Within those rules, there are great amounts of randomness and improvisation possible.

Rather than spend time building up the relationship between jazz and physics, the author spends most of the time covering his academic autobiography. Jazz pops out here and there, but what does seem more common is the bit of chance randomness.

Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor

Brian Keating uses his experience to criticize the current impact of the Nobel Prize and propose solutions. The Nobel Prize encourages scientists to go out on their own, horde information and focus on being the first with "popular" science in the order to reach acclaim. Alas, this runs contrary to the interests of science. It also appears to run contrary to Nobel's original intentions. Instead, it would be better if the prize were conferred on the group of researchers rather than limit it to three individuals. There is also an unofficial "rotation" among the different fields of physics.

The bulk of the book is spent covering his research and experience and how it is colored by the current Nobel prize structure. In a rush to be recognized, a press conference was launched before outside review. His team also had to resort to inferring data from slides because an opposing team was not willing to share. He found his name removed from the top of some research studies, likely in hopes that others could get primary recognition. There was also a rush to "confirm" beliefs rather than let the data speak for itself. Personally, he also had to rush back from crucial research in Antarctica to the death bed of his dying biological father, possibly impearling his quest for a Nobel. In the end, the Nobel-seaking research ended up being a false positive obscured by cosmic dust. They missed their chance. 

There is a little bit of sour grapes in the book. However, there is a lot more introspection. He looked at what he had gone through in a quest for a Nobel and realized it was not best for him or for science. He proposed some solutions. Yet, he still acknowledges the prestige and awe of the award.

Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World

Lisa Randall is an expert on particle physics and very enthusiastic about the work. Knocking on Heaven's Door contains a hodgepodge of her thoughts on science and the physics. It starts with some analysis of science and the differences among science, art and religion. She views the three as different ways of understanding the world. Science attempts to discover what happens. Religion looks for Why. Art provides an alternate view. Conflicts arise when they try to go against their "core" area. There is also the question of "adequate" explanations from science. Newtonian mechanics is not 100% accurate. However, it is adequate for most of the areas that we need. There are many other areas where we have general scientific principals that have been adjusted based on new findings, yet are still in use. We don't need to concern

The work then pivots to talking about particle physics and talking about high speed colliders. It is nearly a history of the CERN and the background of the collider as well as the aborted US Super collider. She mixes the discoveries in particle physics with details of the working experiences at CERN. There are some significant details on the recent discoveries in particle physics as well as the background in how the experiments were run to accomplish these.

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

David Deutsch is a physicist by training. In The Beginning of Infinity, he weaves in physics with the theory of science, philosophy and the future. He has an optimistic view of society. He gives little credit to stories that "the world is doomed." While in school, a professor told everyone that global cooling would lead to an imminent food shortage. That didn't happen. Today we are concerned with global warming. Sometimes people are obsessively concerned with whether the warming is caused by humans or naturally occurring. However, if there are negative consequences to warming, the cause is irrelevant. The scientific method can be used to help find solutions. Political "fixes" will often set things back, in part by forcing effort in the wrong area.

He also gives the example of somebody who thought color televisions were a needless luxury. There was little that color TVs could do that could not be done with black and white screens. Color TVs also depended on rare elements of limited supply, thus would only be available to a limited set of wealthy people. Today, color screens are everywhere. The dependency on rare elements, however, is gone, with CRTs pretty much nonexistent these days. New technology made the previous problems irrelevant. The new technology was built upon the previous technology.

The enlightenment enabled humankind to master the world. The problems we solve today were likely not thought of previously. Scientific explanations can be used to explain everything. They are constantly subject to re-evaluation. He feels that science should seek to explain things based on observations and theories that can be disproved. Supernatural or religious explanations cannot be easily disproved and are not "scientific". (It could be argued that that science and religion live on different planes. They are trying to do very different things. There is little need for them to try to compete with each other.)

The book goes into long discussions about Infinity and the "Infinity Hotel". Greek Philosophers also get significant coverage. Quantum theory, the theory of relativity and Newtonian physics are all covered with their inherent conflicts. There are many different theories of the universe today. Static societies think they have all they need today. These societies eventually die when faced with an external shock they cannot deal with. The Enlightenment helped enable dynamic societies. They use the existing knowledge. However, they also seek to gain new knowledge, possibly throwing out beloved theories in the process. There is no single source of authority other than the truth. (The author has some negative things to say about "post-modernism" which seems to say everything is relative, but only is acceptable if approved by certain "authority figures") 

America's cultures seems at odds with the "enlightenment views" advocated. The left tends to favor "science", but also is subject to adopting certain "beloved beliefs" regardless of new knowledge. The right tends to be more conservatively static, however, it also encourages more freedom of action. A good future for science needs a bit of both.

The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics was Reborn

The Age of Entanglement talks about entanglement and quantum physics. More accurately, it presents the conversations of the physicists as they talked about it. This is barely a step above a primary source. I would prefer a little more narrative in the structure. There are ties to Einstein, the atomic bomb and the red scare. Some people create complex proofs, while others find more simple ones. There is also a relationship between the philosophy and science. Qunatum phsyics creates a number of philosophical dilemmas that require efforts from scientists and philosophers. There are also a difference in the work by theorists and sentimentalists. They are all on the forefront of physics. Alas, this book will give you a lot of history of the process of learning, but not a quick summary of the science that was learned.

Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies

Companies, organisms and cities all scale using a non-linear power law. As cities increase in population, the benefits will not increase linearly. Instead, there will be economies of scale that allow larger cities to benefit more from their increased population. "Establishments" tend to increase at a linear rate. However, the diversity of the establishment changes as the size of the city increases. Similarly, the distance that people will travel to a given location tends to vary at a similar constant rate. (Though some locations, such as an airport may differ.) Rather than comparing cities on a per-capita basis, they can compared on on an adjusted basis to find those that are really "excelling" based on their size. San Jose continues to excel at patents, but there are other smaller cities that also have outsize patent production.
For organisms, there are also some general rules that apply to their size. There is a fairly constant number of heart beats that an organism will have during their lifespan. Smaller mammals will tend to have a much faster heart rate, while larger ones will have one that beats much slower. Organisms scale at coefficiented exponential rate. There is a rough life span that can be expected of organisms based on their metabolic rate. Some parts (such as a heart) must be much larger to support a larger organism. However, other parts (such as the capillaries) remain the same. (We can see something similar in buildings. The empire state building is much larger than a small walk-up. However, the water faucets in both are still the same size.) Organisms have a limit in how much they can grow as individual components need to be able to support the whole body that is growing at a different rate.
Companies also come and go at a similar regular rate. Profits also grow at a different rates based on the size of the company. Like organisms, "death" is an important part of companies and allows for evolution to take place.
Ecosystems are also significantly impacted by minor changes in climate. The metabolic rate is impacted by temperature. Small changes can benefit different organisms in different ways. Some organisms may have a great benefit. However, they also depend on other organisms that may have a different benefit. (For example, a plant may benefit a certain percentage, but pests that attack it my benefit more, while the predator that consumes the pest may benefit less.) It is extremely difficult to tease out all the changes.
The book has a lot of great content and interesting "theories of everything". However, it suffers from an extremely verbose, academic-trying-to-be-popular style of writing.

The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World

The lowly battery is perhaps the most important and most neglected technology of today. Small and efficient batteries underpin most of our modern technology. However, we rarely pay attention to battery guys. In the US, they tend to be mostly immigrants drawn from a few related disciplines, such as physics, chemistry and material science. Powerhouse focuses on a group of them, primarily associated with Argonne Laboratories in the Chicago suburbs and a battery startup Envia. There is the conflict between the corporate and the scientific world. There are pioneers like "Goodenough" who made great advancements, yet never profited. Then there are those at Envia who did make some small advancements, but oversold their world and were exposed as fraudsters. Battery science is a tricky business. Some things look good in the lab, but then have bad properties (like a significant fade of capacity or density over time or a issues scaling.) There is also the case of GM vs. Tesla. GM kept hoping for the great increase in battery technology that would help them sell an electric car. Tesla just decided to go with what was there and make a great car. Tesla's strategy has paid off. It has also helped lead to improvements in battery technology. Build a market and the science will eventually come.

Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us

The air we breathe consists of so many particles, that there is a possibility that we have inhaled some molecule that was inhaled by Caesar. Caeser's Last Breath uses that as a premise to explore the atmosphere and all its intricacies. We get to travel through the discovery of various elements, attempts at weather forecasting and cloud seeding, and even extra terrestrials. (The "Roswell" cover up was an attempt to hide spy balloons from the general public.) We also pass through many wars. Germans commercialized a method for producing fertilizer - and enabled gas attacks. Priestly and a Lavoisier discovered oxygen, and the later got tangled up in the French revolution. There was also a scientist that managed to invent both cloroflorocarbons and leaded gasoline. Oops! It all made for a great experience in popular science.

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

What If? was created by the author if the xcd comic to explore answers to some absurd scientific questions. He tackles questions like "What would happen if there was a 15.0 Earthquake? (earth would probably have blown up.) He also goes off on to tangents with questions like "what would happen if everybody jumped at once?" In the answer he put everyone in Rhode Island. They all jumped at once, and had minimal sound. Then there was the big mess of everybody trying to get home at once. Some questions are not so extreme, but interesting. Virginia is the most common flyover state, in thanks due to flights from Toronto. Delaware has the greatest ratio of flyover to actual landings because of the lack of commercial air traffic. There are many complicated physics questions and lots of things that get blown up. I learned that you could not cook a steak by dropping it form heights. If it got hot enough to be cooked, it would likely sear off the cooked portion. Otherwise it would still be cold. The chapters with actual chapters with "answers" are interspersed with tongue in cheek rapid-fire answers to absurd questions. It all makes for an entertaining quick read.

Physics of the Future

This book would make a great source of inspiration for science fiction novels. There are chapters here about energy from space, nuclear fusion, nanobots and all sorts of technology. The author even peppers the book with actual science fiction allusions. (Star Trek - money? What's that. Nanobots can make everything. However, an emotionless android would not be capable of being a good crew member. Honey I shrunk the Kids? Nope, physics would be totally different at the small level. Terminator? AI research is probably a long way off from getting a senscient computer.)

The book's fault is that it seems to be extremely optimistic towards the progress of science. It does acknowledge the "caveman principle" that we may like contact and physical stuff. Some inventions like the paperless office are doomed to fail because of this. (Or are they? Offices do seem to be getting more and more paperless. It is just not a sudden thing.) Face to face visits are still needed for all the personal contact. However, even beyond these there is the cost of the "Technology". Even if we could create technology to eliminate all our work, would we? If nanobots could produce anything for nothing, accumulation of "stuff" might be simple. But what about property? That is still scarce. We seem to be drowning in too much affluence. We could make automatic cars, but what about the roads? Where would we park all the cars? Reducing pollution might be a nice goal, but what about all the other impacts of cars? And what if medicine could cure just about every disease automatically through little chips. Would we simply become computers? Maybe our destiny is to design the new computers that will be our robotic progeny? Or perhaps a terrorist will use some of it to wipe out most of the earth, and send the world back into a dark age. Or we may even go the way of the dinosaurs.

I want to check out Jules Verne's Paris of the 20th century. I wonder how accurately his view of the future sounded. The problem with future predictions is that it never really goes forward linearly. Some new idea may disrupt the entire train of research. Or a physically inferior form of technology may get a huge amount of money behind it and inflict itself upon the market. Looking at what science can logically be able to do may be a good start. (I didn't realize we actually had fusion now, just not practical fusion.) However, things are never that linear in real life.

He also talks about the phases that things go through. At one time books were precious commodities. Then the price came down where everybody could afford them. Then everyone could afford a library. And now paper is a number one source of trash and books are often more about "fashion statements". He predicts computer chips will follow the same path. They will become embedded everywhere and eventually become a source of much trash. However, he predicts Moore's law will eventually collapse, bringing down much of Silicon Valley with it. (Ah, there is an issue. Silicon Valley has become more of an "innovation" and software hub than a chip producing location. Less rapid increases in processing may change some of the focus on computing, but probably wont be vary disastrous on the area as a whole. Even recently, focus has downshifted to the less powerful mobile devices. If hardware innovation slows, we can expect a lot more in the software innovation front.)

Discussion of economics also gets a little fuzzy. According to the author, all economic bubbles were caused by technological innovation. The previous generation's bubbles were forgotten and thus a new bubble. The bubble happens when the financiers of the new technology have more money than they know what to do with. The actual use of it happens later. The 19th century panics were caused by railroad money. However, the railroad was eventually expanded, providing the benefit. The real estate bubble was caused by internet money needing a place to go. This explanation makes sense on the surface, but seems a little too simplistic in practice.

This book does provide a good overview of technologies that are on the cusp of widespread commercialization. It has, perhaps, a little too much faith in its scientific predictive powers (especially when it veers into the social realm.) However, it still provides lots of fodder for futuristic immaginations.

What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained

Sea Salt may not differ a whole lot from table salt. (And on the west coast, it may be the same.) "Raw" sugar has already been pretty well refined. This and many other interesting tidbits related to food and cooking are contained in this book.

While I listened to the audiobook, this is one of those books that would be good to have sitting in bathroom to pick up and read interesting chapters. It contains plenty of interesting tidbits about the art and science of cooking. To cover a few additional ones: Microwaving and rolling lemons doesn't increase the juice in lemons. However, it makes it easier to hand squeeze more juice out. Microwaves cook by exciting molecules. Silver would make the best frying pan, but it is a little on the expensive side.

There are plenty of additional tidbits regarding food and cooking that can be read in just about any order you desire. They are divided into sections that cover a number of different aspects of food preparation and eating.

Death By Black Hole

Death by Black Hole comes from a series of essays written by an astrophysicist. The work flows well and provides a good background on the greater universe. The title topic appears closer to the end and would be quite gruesome. Your body would be cut in half, then in half again until finally all the molecules and sub-molecules are split into one unrecognizable mass.

He does a good job of describing what we know and how we got to know it. Much of it is guesswork, with more data allowing better theories to be formed. Radio telescopes allow us to find even more about the universe at large. We may only have a few billion years before the universe is destroyed. But before, the sun is likely to go out. Even before that, life on earth may be wiped out by a stray comet or asteroid. (Though we may actually be able to help prevent some of those from being too destructive.)

The study of science seems a lot like reverse engineering a computer program. We just have to see what is there, and try to figure things out. There have been many past proclaimed "end of sciences". However, since then many new theories have been put forth that better explain what we see. A good scientist can be open to all new changes.

Alas, the ending somewhat spoiled the work. There, he attempts to provide a critique of "intelligent design". He argues that scientists simply use deity as a way to credit the things that they don't understand. (Thus, if deity does not have a place in science, does that mean scientists are omniscient?) He then posits that there are so many defects in lifeforms, that there must not have been a deity. (Why would one create all those problems? Well, why would a programmer create bugs?) Then intelligent design bears the brunt of his wrath as a force that retards the growth of science. I think that takes things a little too far, and may be a result of the atheistic pushing of Hawkins and other scientists. Science and religion can work nicely together. Religion is like the high level documentation. It explains how things were done and provides some APIs for doing certain things. Science is an attempt to dissect the details and find detailed hidden features and APIs. There is no need for them to conflict. It is easy to be both religious and scientific. Science rarely disproves religion. Rather it provides alternate explanations. Religion also rarely retards science. In fact, it may help it in providing a better focus. Evolution could be a good explanation for the relgious creation. Intelligent design provides another explanation. The only harm to science is if it spends too much time worrying about it to focus on other research efforts. (Isaac Newton made huge contributions to science in spite of spending years justifying his work with religion. Perhaps his output would have been more without the religious influence, but it could have also been less.)