Manjit Kumar

For most people, quantum theory is a byword for mysterious, impenetrable science. And yet for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this magisterial book, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly-written history of this fundamental scientific revolution, and the divisive debate at its core. Quantum theory looks at the very building blocks of our world, the particles and processes without which it could not exist. Yet for 60 years most physicists believed that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar shows how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century. Quantum theory is weird.In 1905, Albert Einstein suggested that light was a particle, not a wave, defying a century of experiments. Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Erwin Schrodinger's famous dead-and-alive cat are similarly strange. As Niels Bohr said, if you weren't shocked by quantum theory, you didn't really understand it. While "Quantum" sets the science in the context of the great upheavals of the modern age, Kumar's centrepiece is the conflict between Einstein and Bohr over the nature of reality and the soul of science. 'Bohr brainwashed a whole generation of physicists into believing that the problem had been solved', lamented the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann. But in "Quantum", Kumar brings Einstein back to the centre of the quantum debate. "Quantum" is the essential read for anyone fascinated by this complex and thrilling story and by the band of brilliant men at its heart.

Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality

Quantum

Quantum. Da Einstein a Bohr, la teoria dei quanti, una nuova idea della realtà

Du 24 au 29 octobre 1927 se tint à Bruxelles un congrès historique, qui réunit dix-sept titulaires ou futurs lauréats du prix Nobel - l'une des plus remarquables rencontres de cerveaux jamais organisées ! L'objet du cinquième congrès Solvay était "Electrons et photons". Manjit Kuman fait revivre chacun de ces personnages et les conflits qui les opposaient. Car derrière les théories les plus abstraites se cachait l'affrontement d'hommes qui, malgré leur intelligence, pouvaient se comporter avec une extrême violence pour défendre leurs convictions. Einstein, Bohr, Planck, Broglie, Pauli, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Dirac... Certains partageaient l'esprit de l'école de Copenhague et considéraient que la réalité dépendait des conditions expérimentales. D'autres estimaient que "Dieu" ne joue pas aux dés, et que le fameux chat de Schrödinger est soit bien mort, soit bien vivant ! La question n'étant toujours pas tranchée... Un ouvrage très documenté, qui se lit comme un roman.

Einstein, Bohr... et le débat sur la nature de la réalité

Le grand roman de la physique quantique

Manjit Kumar's superlative history of science's most fundamental revolution - in a brilliant illustrated edition. In this striking and sumptuous two-colour edition, Manjit Kumar's BBC Samuel Johnson Prize-shortlisted Quantum is wonderfully enriched by over 200 photos, artwork, maps and diagrams. It includes photos, some intimate and often little-seen before, of all the key protagonists; reproductions of key documents such as revealing letters and correspondence; detailed diagrams explaining the science and bringing to life classic thought experiments; and evocative portraits of the period, particularly of Cambridge, Copenhagen and Germany of the 1920s and 30s.

Quantum - Illustrated Edition

Con acume critico e pregnanza argomentativa, Kumar colloca la scoperta della meccanica quantistica nel contesto dei grandi sconvolgimenti dell'epoca moderna e illustra in maniera chiara e rigorosa il processo evolutivo della nuova disciplina.

John Sutherland

Jim Baggott

Patricia Fara

Cordelia Fine

Greg Grandin

Stephen Fender

John Waller

Michael Steen

Mark Hughes

James Hannam

Tommy Byrne

Maryanne Woolf

Icon Books is an independent British publisher which publishes popular and engaging non-fiction for adults. We’re proud to be part of the Independent Alliance in the UK, publishing companies who share a common vision of editorial excellence and original, diverse publishing. This ebook sampler – available free on Kindle, in EPUB and as a PDF download from our website – covers subjects from popular science to sports biography to philosophy. The sampler includes extracts from: Atomic by Jim Baggott; Crashed & Byrned by Tommy Byrne; Fordlandia by Greg Grandin; God’s Philosophers by James Hannam; The Lives and Times of the Great Composers by Michael Steen; Love, Sex, Death and Words by John Sutherland and Stephen Fender; A Mind of Its Own by Cordelia Fine; Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Woolf; Quantum by Manjit Kumar; Sex, Botany and Empire by Patricia Fara; The Real Oliver Twist and A Time to Dance, A Time to Die by John Waller. From Proust and the Squid, a fascinating exploration of the science of the reading brain – ‘We were never born to read,’ begins Maryanne Wolf – to Greg Grandin’s Fordlandia, the riveting story of the American town Henry Ford tried to build in the Brazilian Amazon and Manjit Kumar’s BBC Samuel Johnson prizewinning Quantum, these books represent the best of over 20 years of non‐fiction publishing from Icon Books.

FREE Icon Books eBook Sampler

“A lucid account of quantum theory (and why you should care) combined with a gripping narrative.”—San Francisco Chronicle Quantum theory is weird. As Niels Bohr said, if you weren’t shocked by quantum theory, you didn’t really understand it. For most people, quantum theory is synonymous with mysterious, impenetrable science. And in fact for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly written account of this fundamental scientific revolution, focusing on the central conflict between Einstein and Bohr over the nature of reality and the soul of science. This revelatory book takes a close look at the golden age of physics, the brilliant young minds at its core—and how an idea ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century.

Manjit Kumar

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