Screen LibraryEinstein's dice and Schrödinger's cat : how two great minds battled quantum randomness to create a unified theory of physics /
Physicist Paul Halpern tells the little-known story of how Einstein and Schrödinger searched, first as collaborators and then as competitors, for a theory that transcended quantum weirdness. This story of their quest, which ultimately failed, provides readers with new insights into the history of ph...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Group,
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| Publisher Address: | New York : |
| Publication Dates: | [2015] |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
Physicist Paul Halpern tells the little-known story of how Einstein and Schrödinger searched, first as collaborators and then as competitors, for a theory that transcended quantum weirdness. This story of their quest, which ultimately failed, provides readers with new insights into the history of physics and the lives and work of two scientists whose obsessions drove its progress. --Publisher's description. Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrodinger were friends and comrades-in-arms against what they considered the most preposterous aspects of quantum physics: its indeterminacy. Einstein famously quipped that God does not play dice with the universe, and Schrodinger is equally well known for his thought experiment about the cat in the box who ends up spread out in a probabilistic state, neither wholly alive nor wholly dead. Both of these famous images arose from these two men's dissatisfaction with quantum weirdness and with their assertion that underneath it all, there must be some essentially dete |
| Carrier Form: | x, 271 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-240) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780465075713 0465075711 |
| Index Number: | QC174 |
| CLC: | O413 |
| Call Number: | O413/H195 |
| Contents: | Allies and adversaries -- The clockwork universe -- The crucible of gravity -- Matter waves and quantum jumps -- The quest for unification -- Spooky connections and zombie cats -- Luck of the Irish -- Physics by public relations -- The last waltz : Einstein's and Schrödinger's final years -- Beyond Einstein and Schrödinger : the ongoing search for unity. |