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The Quantum Story
- A History in 40 Moments
- Narrated by: Mike Pollock
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
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The Quantum Story
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Summary
Utterly beautiful. Profoundly disconcerting. Quantum theory is quite simply the most successful account of the physical universe ever devised. Its concepts underpin much of the 21st-century technology that we now take for granted. But at the same time it has completely undermined our ability to make sense of the world at its most fundamental level. Niels Bohr claimed that anybody who is not shocked by the theory has not understood it. The American physicist Richard Feynman went further: he claimed that nobody understands it.
The Quantum Story begins in 1900, tracing a century of game-changing science. Popular science writer Jim Baggott first shows how, over the space of three decades, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and others formulated and refined the theory--and opened the floodgates. Indeed, since then, a torrent of ideas has flowed from the world's leading physicists, as they explore and apply the theory's bizarre implications. To take us from the story's beginning to the present day, Baggott organizes his narrative around 40 turning-point moments of discovery. Many of these are inextricably bound up with the characters involved--their rivalries and their collaborations, their arguments and, not least, their excitement as they sense that they are redefining what reality means. Through the mix of story and science, we experience their breathtaking leaps of theory and experiment, as they uncover such undreamed of and mind-boggling phenomenon as black holes, multiple universes, quantum entanglement, the Higgs boson, and much more.
Brisk, clear, and compelling, The Quantum Story is science writing at its best. A compelling look at the 100-year history of quantum theory, it illuminates the idea as it reveals how generations of physicists have grappled with this monster ever since.
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What listeners say about The Quantum Story
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 14-05-22
Baggott's best book
Listened to this audiobook many times. Why hadn't I given it ratings before now? Laziness probably. The more I listen the more I like it. It's undoubtedly the best book on the subject if only because it covers the entire history, leaving nothing out unlike similar books that focus on a mere fraction of it. I'm far from uncritical of Baggott: I dislike his excessive critique of many of the most popular popularizers of cutting edge of physics; I don't have a problem with scientists being skeptical about theories that can't, yet, stand up to experimental verification. But the search for such ideas that can't be proven by current technology isn't as pointless as Baggott endlessly insists it is. This criticism of many of Baggott's books doesn't apply to this one, however: he focuses almost entirely on theories that have been fully vindicated, carefully explaining exactly how this was done, explaining better than anyone else I know. When he does touch, especially towards the end of this book, on the interpretations of QM or quantum gravity, the ones he's most critical of, he is uncharacteristically restrained, possibly thanks to an editor pulling his rhetorical punches, refusing to shove his infamous skepticism down our throats. In other words, this is a very balanced text that helps us make our own minds up, encouraging us to keep an open mind. Highly recommended.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
- Adrian
- 27-01-12
You should obtain a degree after listening to this
Crikey, get a text book if you want to know this story, it would be far easier. I abandoned the fascinating subject half way through quite unable to find time enough to devote exclusive concentration to the details of the mathematics presented here. I am NOT a mathematician, mind.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- David
- 09-09-12
Boring as hell
I downloaded this before a long flight and found it utterely boring, it is a littled mixed up, discontinuous and presented in a drawling long winded lecturing format, the narrator didnt help either.
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