Entanglement

by Amir D. Aczel

Can two particles become inextricably linked, so that a change in one is instantly reflected in its counterpart, even if a universe separates them?  Albert Einstein's work suggested it was possible, but it was too bizarre, and too contrary to how we then understood space and time, for him to prove. No one could. Until now. Entanglement tells the astounding story of the scientists who set out to complete Einstein's work. With accesible language and a highly entertaining tone, Amir Aczel shows us a world where the improbable—from unbreakable codes to teleportation—becomes possible.

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction, History, Popular Science, Philosophy, Quantum Mechanics

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 18, 2002

About the author

Amir Aczel was an Israeli-born American author of popular science and mathematics books. He was a lecturer in mathematics and history of mathematics.

He studied at the University of California, Berkeley. Getting graduating with a BA in mathematics in 1975, received a Master of Science in 1976 and several years later accomplished his Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Oregon. He died in Nîmes, France in 2015.

Reviews

[Willa Guadalupe Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book- it is one that a non maths, non physics person can grasp- I re-read it once a year or so & continue to get new thoughts from it. The ideas presented are mind expanding.

[Jason Furman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book on Entanglement. Suffers from my pet peeve in popular science books -- which is repeating lots of material you have read over and over again. You would think that someone coming to a book on Entanglement would have read a few other accounts of quantum mechanics before and doesn't need to re-read the familiar history starting from the Greeks through Planck and Bohr, Heisenberg and the rest of the early pioneers. Or that someone who wants an introduction to quantum mechanics would not want to start with a book that focuses on one aspect. The book also suffers from too much biography, which would be fine if it were not for the fact that it features 20+ scientists -- so that mini-biographies of each weigh down the explication.

The second half is interesting, including both theoretical work like Bell's theorem and the experimental tests of it. You can never really understand this material without going through the actual physics (and even then you can't actually understand it), but the shortness of the explication made one suffer a little more than normal in a book of this sort. Plus there was a lot less on applications of entanglement, like encryption, than I might have liked.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

the world of the fast and the small is strange indeed and only a handful of scientific greats have really been able to delve down deep into what it all might mean. in the first half of the book, Aczel introduces the reader to them: Planck, Bohr, Schrödinger, de Broglie - the personalities behind the fabled "Thirty Years that Shook Physics" and the concepts that disquieted Einstein himself.

the second half tells the story of the major research on quantum entanglement between then and now as well as touching on possible technologies that may emerge from that research in the future.

Aczel, a scientist himself, keeps the speculation grounded in math and science. this is exactly what one should do when faced with a topic as heady as spooky action at a distance between entangled particles. even if the concept of entanglement itself remains elusive, the story of how we achieved any understanding at all of it is fascinating.

[Ericka Clou · Rating 4 out of 5]

The text contained a lot of history, which is fine but not what I was expecting. The science parts are difficult to get a meaningful understanding of. I might need to reread it at some point.

[Stan Paulsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think more than a few entangled photons whooooshed right over my head while reading this book. Still I was spellbound with what I did understand. I loved learning about all the physicists that contributed to quantum theory and the experiments they designed and performed. I had some trouble following some of those experiments, however, but the ones I did understand were absolutely fascinating.

Einstein was right, this stuff is spooky, but how very interesting! If it weren't for all of the rigorous data behind "the most successful theory in science" I would have trouble believing entanglement is nothing more than the rantings of a bunch of really smart crackpots. The reality is more bizarre than what even the best mad scientists can come up with.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice layman's guide following the study of entanglement .


The authors obit. Died last month.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/sci...

[Pierre Menard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Il volume del matematico e divulgatore scientifico israeliano Amir Aczel è interamente dedicato al fenomeno fisico dell’entanglement quantistico fra due o più particelle, che consiste in una correlazione che lega le particelle in modo tale da violare il principio di località e costituire il punto di partenza per tutta una serie di effetti sperimentali controintuitivi e di potenzialità fantascientifiche (dalla crittografia quantistica al teleporting) che si stanno a poco a poco concretizzando, pur tra mille difficoltà teoriche e pratiche.

Come dichiarato nell’introduzione, Aczel vuole narrare la vicenda scientifica e umana che ha portato all’individuazione e alla comprensione teorica e sperimentale del fenomeno in questione. Il pubblico a cui si rivolge è abbastanza ampio, e non necessariamente esperto di fisica. Le spiegazioni sono di buon livello, molto chiare ma anche estremamente semplici. Si fa poco uso della matematica e le notazioni simboliche sono ridotte all’osso. Delle applicazioni, sempre volutamente, si parla di sfuggita nelle ultime pagine del libro, giusto per dare un qualche spunto per ulteriori letture: se il lettore è interessato a scoprire come si potrebbe realizzare il teletrasporto di un essere vivente, deve rivolgersi altrove. Forse manca un po’ di rigore, ma bisogna tener presente la difficoltà insita nel presentare temi che per essere compresi fino in fondo richiederebbero una laurea in matematica o in fisica.

Il giudizio sul libro perciò deve riguardare essenzialmente la qualità della presentazione dell’argomento centrale, l’entanglement, e dei passi fatti dai numerosi fisici coinvolti nel lungo cammino verso la sua comprensione, non ancora terminato. Ed è purtroppo un giudizio non del tutto sufficiente: lo dico con dispiacere per l’interesse – non solo professionale – che nutro verso questo tema. Il libro è un po’ sbilanciato: Aczel dedica troppo spazio alla prima parte (circa 100 pagine), che descrive i fondamenti della meccanica quantistica, da Young fino a von Neumann, passando per Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger etc., soprattutto perché si perde in dettagli biografici, seppure interessanti e divertenti, a discapito dei contributi scientifici (si veda per esempio il capitolo dedicato a von Neumann, forse il più carente da questo punto di vista). C’è anche una certa incoerenza nella successione degli eventi: ad esempio il capitolo dedicato a Einstein andava anticipato o quanto meno diviso in più parti, per evitare una certa confusione cronologica - dato che la spiegazione dell’effetto fotoelettrico precede di molto il lavoro sul paradosso EPR. Se il lettore ha una certa conoscenza, anche piuttosto limitata, della teoria quantistica, potrebbe iniziare a leggere dal cap. 11. Le cose cominciano a migliorare a partire dalla descrizione del fondamentale contributo di John S. Bell, che ha permesso ai fisici di testare sperimentalmente una visione filosofica (metafisica) della realtà. La parte più bella e affascinante è sicuramente quella compresa nei capitoli 13-17, dove si affrontano in modo analitico i complessi esperimenti che hanno portato alla conferma della validità della meccanica quantistica e alla sconfitta dell’approccio einsteiniano delle variabili nascoste. Sembra tuttavia che questa parte non sia stata sottoposta ad un adeguato lavoro di editing: mancano i nessi logici fra un paragrafo e l’altro e si verificano spesso riprese e vere e proprie ripetizioni. Talvolta pare che il testo sia stato riscritto più volte e poi ci si sia dimenticati di sopprimere le vecchie versioni. Con l’aumentare della complessità degli esperimenti Aczel ha preferito lasciare la parola ai relativi protagonisti, che hanno curato la stesura di alcune parti degli ultimi capitoli: così facendo però, ha indebolito non poco l’organicità e la coerenza del libro.

Aczel non esita a sottolineare un aspetto epistemologico molto importante: la meccanica quantistica riesce a spiegare benissimo come si verifichino fenomeni apparentemente insoliti e inaspettati (almeno da un punto di vista classico), ma è stranamente taciturna sul perché, domanda legittima che però spesso risulta difficilmente soddisfacibile. Del resto, come ha detto giustamente Feynman, nessuno ha mai veramente capito la meccanica quantistica. Altrettanta enfasi, giustamente, c’è sullo spirito collaborativo che ha animato i principali fisici coinvolti nella verifica delle conseguenze del teorema di Bell: Shimony, Clauser, Horne, Aspect, Zeilinger, Mandel, Greenberger etc., tutti in qualche modo “entangled” fra loro, anche se provenienti da background piuttosto eterogenei. Il libro risulta piuttosto efficace nel far comprendere al lettore meno esperto l’impegno e la creatività necessarie ad effettuare una scoperta scientifica rilevante.

La traduzione di Massimiliano Pagani è di buon livello, pur con qualche piccola svista: ottima la scelta di non tradurre il vocabolo portante e di inserire spesso gli equivalenti anglosassoni di sigle e termini tecnici. La bibliografia è particolarmente succinta, ma del resto il libro è pensato per un pubblico ampio e i riferimenti più specialistici sono disseminati nei vari capitoli. Interessante la collezione di foto (purtroppo quasi tutte in bianco e nero), mentre i numerosi diagrammi che rappresentano i vari esperimenti sono forse troppo naive per risultare davvero utili.

Consigliato a chi vuole intrecciare il proprio destino a quello altrui.

Sconsigliato ai seguaci del solipsismo.

[Phoebe Brache · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love that this book walks you through the history leading up to the theory of quantum entanglement, it’s very cool to learn how physics has progressed over time. I also like how accessible the material is even for someone who has no/little background in physics

[Ergun Coruh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first came across the bizarre quantum phenomenon known as "Entanglement" while reading a book called The Large, the Small and the Human Mind by Roger Penrose, then I lost it at some point. In desperation I started to search other resources and found this book called ENTANGLEMENT: The Greatest Mystery in Physics by science author Amir Aczel. Aczel describes Quantum Entanglement as follows:

"Entanglement is a superposition state of the states of two or more particles, taken as one system. Spatial separation as we know it seems to evaporate with respect to such system. Two particles that can be miles, or light years, apart may behave in a concerted way: what happens to one of them happens to the other one instantaneously, regardless of the distance between them. "

Good book, served the purpose, certainly enhanced my understanding of Quantum Entanglement. However scientific flow was frequently disrupted by lengthy life stories of Physicists. Thereby the focus was lost and reading became excruciatingly hard -one wonders could this be more of a science history book rather than a book about Entanglement-. Also some of experiments weren't explained well despite pictures. 2.5 out of 5.

[Jeff Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of physics from the beginning of Quantum physics to pretty close to the present day. Whatever the future of physics looks like, it's going to involve the insights so carefully described in this book. Some of it went over my head, and I suspect some of it goes over everyone's head - this stuff does not appear to be fully hashed out and the next generation of physicists seem to have work to do yet.

Would be a good followup to A Brief History of Time.

[lk05321 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book on a very bizarre fact of quantum physics. Beware, you need a strong mind for science and logic, otherwise this book will smash your brain. Hmm... can teleportation be possible? This book, for the first half, has a lot of history about the theory.

[Mangoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short and gracious book on the history of quantum mechanics and entanglement in particular. In the plethora of books that cover a similar territory for the general reader, this reaches further down - essentially till the very year of publication, which is 2001 - and gives the proper attention to living champions such as Clauser, Aspect, Zeilinger, Shimony, Horne (as well as the late Bell). Reading this now, in view of this year (2022) Nobel prize for physics, was a strange experience plagued by the sweet taste of hindsight. The treatment of the quantum mechanics is kept simple, though the diagrams of the experimental designs devised to test Bell's theorem and its variants (including the 3-particle version "without inequalities") are reported. The philosophical implications are also mostly lightly sketched (that aspect has been much better covered in the last decade, for instance in Becker's book "What is real?", and by Maudlin and Albert). As the story reaches recent times, the book becomes ever more textured with anecdotes revealed to the author by the protagonists, which makes the reading fresh and finally gives the same legendary treatment to these brilliant scientists as has been so far mainly done only for the fathers of quantum theory.

[Laura García · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maravilloso libro. No soy experta en física y este libro es perfecto para quienes no somos expertos y contamos solo con conocimientos básicos. La teoría de la que habla este libro, además, es bellísima. Poesía pura dentro de la física.

[Chris Esposo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good book introducing the subject of entanglement. The first 2 hours go through a basic history of Quantum Mechanics, but provides some interesting vignettes of Plank, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and Von Neumann. 2 fun facts I pulled away from this part: Plank, like Einstein, didn't ever believe Quantum theory was anything more than a statistical approximation, and he came about his name-sake constant purely through empirical means. He never realized it may end up being a universal invariant. Second interesting fact on the fathers of QT, Schrodinger was a chronic philanderer, who had an illegitimate child, who himself fathered a noted particle physicist many years later.

From here, the book focuses on the real meat of the subject matter, namely Bell's Inequality, and the mathematical and experimental results predicting this finding. As a subject matter layman myself, it is deeply striking to learn the fact that both the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the Bell Inequality, are simple extensions of properties of Hilbert Spaces as the author demonstrates in the text. Hilbert spaces are a type of abstract algebra in pure mathematics.

According to the author, the algebraic structures that show these results are the Non-commutativity of operator products for the Uncertainty principle, and a proof that no dispersion free states exist in Hilbert Spaces of dimensions greater than or equal to 3, for Bell's inequality. I have not done the proof by hand myself, so I'll take his word on that. Unfortunately, besides broadly stating what a dispersion-free state is, which he summarizes as a state with only non-stochastic components, not much is explained about how they are derived/defined with respect to Hilbert Spaces. This is where I suspect a proper textbook on QM would come in handy.

Despite the failure in some of the descriptive details, these two results should strike the listener to their core. The fact that the corpus of QM can be fitted into such a neat/clean mathematical structure, is a prime example of the often quoted "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" from Eugene Wigner. In fact, as the author states int he book, QM is accurate up to numerical precision of 40 decimal places for behaviours of objects less than 10 nanometers. It's also never been inconsistent with any experimentation up to now.

The consistency of the theory with empirical data is no small feat, as there are many subjects and theories that attempt to extend from pure abstraction but fail miserably when corresponding to real data. Mathematical economics comes principally to mind when thinking of examples. There, one has a subject that front-loads much more abstraction than QM, or even QFT, or any of the modern day iterations of those ideas, and yet can scarcely claim any predictive power whatsoever. That subject is almost a total failure as a predictive science in its purported domain. The fact that the founders of QM extended a theory from abstraction to reality, while maintaining empirical consistency, will remain a rare jewel in human knowledge for some time I suspect.

Some, however, would contend that this is an anachronistic characterization, as linear algebra and quantum theory are contemporaneous. Therefore, the abstract algebra which founds the Hilbert Space Theory came after the experimental findings of QM. So one would be hard-pressed to claim that QM sprung forth from pure abstraction.

This may be true about the Uncertainty Principle, although, it should be noted that Heisenberg independently derived matrix algebra, and the Linear Algebra was developed often unknown to early 20th century physicists. However, it doesn't seem to be true about the Bell Inequality, and the corresponding proof, establishing that entanglement was an actual physical phenomenon.

This book goes over a lot of the above discussion and much more, including the scientific and philosophical discussions of the EPR paradox, and how this motivated the study of entanglement. This was itself posed as a sort of proof by contradiction from Einstein, Rosen, and Podolsky. This book is really, a fascinating history of these ideas. In the end, Einstein could not jettison the notion of scientific realism to accept non-locality, entanglement, or QM, as a whole. A bit tragic, as it may come about that his EPR Pair paper might end up being his most impactful work in the grander context of modern science.

In summary, this book would serve an excellent supplement and guidebook for a more technical text, as it does delve fairly deeply for a lay text into the actual mechanics of QM. It puts many abstract and experimental results into historical context and time order, which I believe helps one learn the material. Highly recommend

[Alecsphys · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book explaining the basic idea behind the most incredible and mind blowing fact of quantum physics, the entanglement! The book follows also the historical path of this phenomenon and its understanding and experimental evidence, starting from the seminal EPR paper up to the quantum teleportation being possible thanks to the nature of the entanglement.
The understanding of the Nature and of our fundamental idea were challenged more than once in our history; think about the concepts of absolute space and time destroyed by Einstein's theories of special and general relativity or the fact that the fundamental laws of quantum physics have an intrinsic probability aspect so that pure determinism is trashed. Again Einstein in the EPR paper stated the impossibility for quantum physics to be a complete theory assuming impossible to doubt about the locality of the reality, i.e. it should be impossible to have objects in real life correlated between them regardless their mutual distance, so that doing something on an object here would cause something instantaneously on another object wherever else. But John Bell many years later entered the game introducing a famous theorem that could be experimentally verified to discriminate if Einstein was right or not. Years later other people were capable to implement such experiments in many different ways closing definitively the puzzle. Einstein was wrong! The entanglement is a real and observable fact and it implies we have to abandon even the concept of locality!
Sad to not have been in the optics laboratories of my department during the years of my physics university studies because in that years De Martini research group was one of the two all over the world capable of doing quantum teleportation and so being able to "see" entanglement at work!

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read more interesting and thorough explanations of entanglement, but this serves as a decent introduction to the phenomenon. Aczel never, ever should have described the physicists in question as being "entangled" with each other - way too cheesy and the meaning of the quantum phenomenon gets undermined. Any decent editor would have prevented such a thing. Also, it seems to me to be common knowledge that Grete Hermann called Neumann out for false assumptions before anyone else had the guts, or cleverness, to, and yet, she gets no mention in this book. That is a huge, unforgivable oversight.

[Bennett Coles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Promising a discussion on one of the most fascinating topics in modern physics, this book disappoints. It takes the reader through the usual "history of modern physics" in order to set the stage, but then it just becomes a series of biographies of 20th century physicists who happened to work on the question of entanglement. Only in the last few pages does this book actually talk about the fact that entanglement has been proven as reality, and virtually no space is given to discussing what it might actually mean. Maybe I was just looking for something else, but this book unfortunately comes up very light on substance.

[Irena Pasvinter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected to get a bit more of understanding of entanglement out of this book, but I ended up feeling more baffled than before. Explanations of the actual experiments which supposedly proved this phenomenon lacked in details and lucidity. The parts I liked most about this book were related to biographical and anecdotal facts about the scientists entangled with the entanglement's discovery and research.

[Stephen Hackney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intellectually stimulating! I understood little of the subject matter, i.e., the 'entanglement phenomena' of quantum theory; but the author presented the material in such a way that I found the threads that bound the scientific/historical discovery of the concept of 'entanglement' in theoretical physics absolutely fascinating. I am a lay person, not at all versed in the fields of science or mathematics, yet I shall be reading additional works by Amir Aczel.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have rarely had such disparate opinions about different portions of a book. Entanglement's early chapters provide some of the best explanations I have ever encountered of the entanglement phenomena as well as some other quantum mechanical concepts. However, later sections of the book get bogged down in minutiae. The authors covers various experiments in far too much detail to hold my attention. By the end, I felt I knew all I wanted to know about entanglement . . . and quite a bit more.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the subject but the book was tiresome. It had way too many unuseful biographical details and not enough exposition of the actual phenomenon of entanglement. Hard to recommend because I can't figure out who the intended audience is. It's too shallow for anyone with some knowledge of physics and too detailed for people who don't have such knowledge. 3 stars for good effort aiming to popularize a topic that's difficult to explain.

[Randal Samstag · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book by a mathematician who has retired to writing popular books about mathematics and science. I got it out of the Seattle Public Library. A good popular introduction to the strange science of entanglement. Seek more and you will be even more puzzled.

[Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very detailed and honest look at a great mystery and connection between relativity and quantum physics. Often called the greatest mystery.

[Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

من أفضل الكتب التي تن��ولت هذا الجزء.. بسيط وواضح.. وأجمل ما فيه التأريخ... التأريخ لكل نظرية ومصطلح وعالم.. يجعل لك خلفية علمية مبدئيه تؤهلك لفهم القسم التالي في الكتاب.. انصح به جدا

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics" by Amir D. Aczel, narrated by Henry Leyva, is an engaging exploration of one of the most perplexing phenomena in quantum mechanics. This audiobook delves into the concept of quantum entanglement, a topic that has fascinated and puzzled scientists since its inception.

Overview of Content

Aczel's book is a deep dive into the history, science, and implications of quantum entanglement. He begins by setting the stage with the early days of quantum mechanics, introducing key figures such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Erwin Schrödinger. The narrative then transitions into the heart of the matter: the phenomenon of entanglement, where particles become interconnected in such a way that the state of one instantly influences the state of another, regardless of the distance separating them.

Narration and Presentation

Henry Leyva's narration is a highlight of this audiobook. His clear and articulate delivery makes complex scientific concepts accessible to a broad audience. Leyva's voice is engaging and maintains a steady pace, which is crucial for a subject that can easily become overwhelming. His ability to convey enthusiasm and curiosity mirrors Aczel's own passion for the topic, making the listening experience both educational and enjoyable.

Strengths of the Audiobook

1. Accessibility: One of the most commendable aspects of Aczel's work is his ability to make quantum mechanics understandable to non-specialists. He avoids jargon and explains concepts in a way that is both informative and engaging. This is particularly important for a topic as intricate as entanglement, which can easily become esoteric.

2. Historical Context: Aczel does an excellent job of placing the development of quantum mechanics within a historical framework. By providing background on the scientists involved and the debates that shaped the field, he gives listeners a sense of the human element behind the science. This historical context enriches the narrative and helps listeners appreciate the significance of the discoveries discussed.

3. Narrative Style: The book is written in a narrative style that reads almost like a detective story. Aczel builds suspense as he describes the experiments and theoretical breakthroughs that led to our current understanding of entanglement. This approach keeps the listener engaged and eager to learn more.

4. Implications and Applications: Aczel doesn't just stop at explaining what entanglement is; he also explores its potential applications. From unbreakable codes to the possibility of teleportation, he discusses how entanglement could revolutionize technology and our understanding of the universe. This forward-looking perspective adds an exciting dimension to the book.

Areas for Improvement

While "Entanglement" is a well-crafted and informative audiobook, there are a few areas where it could be improved:

1. Depth of Explanation: Although Aczel does an admirable job of simplifying complex concepts, there are moments where the explanations might feel too cursory for listeners with a background in physics. A bit more depth in certain sections could enhance the book's appeal to a more scientifically literate audience.

2. Pacing: The pacing of the audiobook is generally good, but there are sections where the narrative slows down, particularly when delving into the minutiae of certain experiments. A more consistent pacing could help maintain listener engagement throughout.

3. Visual Aids: Quantum mechanics is a highly visual field, and some concepts are challenging to grasp without diagrams or illustrations. While this is a limitation of the audiobook format, providing supplementary materials or references to visual aids could enhance the learning experience.

Conclusion

"Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics" is a compelling and accessible introduction to one of the most intriguing phenomena in quantum mechanics. Amir D. Aczel's clear and engaging writing, combined with Henry Leyva's excellent narration, makes this audiobook a valuable resource for anyone interested in the mysteries of the quantum world. Whether you're a novice to the subject or have some background in physics, this audiobook offers a fascinating journey through the history and science of entanglement.

[John E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously this is written for the general public about the most confusing aspects of QM regarding its interpretation and meaning that puzzled brilliant physicists for more than a half a century -Entanglement.

Overall the book is fairly well written providing the history of QM and EPR, which is the paper that that physicists couldn’t wrap their heads around. And when you read it, you will realize it’s still a puzzle to most of us. It’s wore reading if you’re curious.

Bell’s theorem is the key to entanglement that provoked experimentalist to test the validity of QM. And the book provides lots of descriptions of those experimentalists and their experiments. If anything, you’ll get an idea how important the issue is, the experimental complications, and the character of the people that worked on that problem. You may not understand everything but you’ll see how some physicists broke the problem down into seemingly very simple thought experiments. But don’t be fooled. Those apparently simple thought experiments are pandora boxes.

There’s no math. Most of the physics concepts are explained and easy to follow. But some will require thinking - arm chair type of thinking. And that’s the part you may want more information on from another source.

Unfortunately, the author didn’t provide the layman a simple way to understand Bell’s theorem. And this is the most important concept of entanglement and the following experiments that led to multiple Nobel prizes. This is unfortunate since he could have found someone like Kaiser to fill in the pieces. History is easy. Understanding is hard. So in the end, it’s a history book.

I would recommend David Kaiser’s book on this issue - just look for EPR, Bell, and Bohm. David clearly explained Bell’s prediction in simple combinations - the possible outcomes you’d see from repeated experiments and the difference from QM.






— other references related to Bell’s theorem and entanglement —

How the hippies saved physics. David Kaiser. This is very entertaining. It’s history with a fairly good explanation on entanglement and Bell’s theorem.

“DANCE OF THE PHOTONS
FROM EINSTEIN TO QUANTUM TELEPORTATION” Anton Zeilinger. This is a grind, confusing, and not worth reading closely for someone curious about QM.

The Quantum Wold. Polkinghorne. Slim, 92 pages. Very good. Brief intro to QM and Bell. Doesn’t overload the reader with math but uses it sparingly - should help illustrate concepts. Interesting background of the author. When I was at UC Cavendish, the rumor was he was leaving to be a priest. And that convinced me to not bother anymore. If he couldn’t figure it out, and priesthood was the only way to get a grip on the world, I needed to leave and find something else. He left for other reasons we know now.

Teleportation The Impossible Leap
DAVID DARLING.

Quantum Nonlocality, Chance Teleportation and Other Quantum Marvels. Gisin. Not my favorite. But has a good explanation of correlation and non-locality relevant to QM computing. Latter choice for understanding entanglement. This is a grind.

Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics. Peter Lewis. This is only 24 pages and may help.


The New Quantum Age
From Bell’s Theorem to Quantum Computation and Teleportation
Andrew Whitaker. This is readable. You can select chapters to read. Not complicated.

Philosophical Issues in Quantum Theory
First published Mon Jul 25, 2016; substantive revision Wed Mar 23, 2022. Stanford library of philosophy. This can be a bit deep. But short. There are several papers in the library for those really interested.

QuantumNonlocality and Reality - 5 0 Years o f Bell's Theorem. This for some but not all. Many articles that range from philosophy to history to QM. For very interested readers.

Foundations and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
In the Light of a Critical-Historical Analysis of the Problems and of a Synthesis of the Results. This for serious readers. Not gentle reading.










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[Voyt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Einstein's creative skepticism and its legacy.
POSTED BY ME AT AMAZON 2002
Einstein's did not believe that Universe may be changing or expanding, despite the fact, that his equations of GR were telling him opposite. He introduced Cosmological Constant in order to boost his believes. He was not right, but since 1998 his constant has become a Lambda force, the most important constant of the Nature and in cosmology science.
Einstein's skepticism surfaced again in 1935, when he questioned quantum theory, the one he contributed to immensely by describing the "photoelectric effect".
Einstein was calling quantum theory "incomplete" according to his notions of realism and locality. What experiments and knowledge has been developed later, we can learn reading Amir Aczel book. Will "entanglement" phenomena become as important for modern quantum science as Lambda force for today's cosmology? We do not know it at this time. Essentially Amir Aczel's book describes CERN theorist John Bell's theorem (1966) as a tool for probing certain unknown quantum properties. I believe this book could have been written better. First 122 pages elegantly presents history of classic quantum physics from Young to famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen's paper. Classic quantum formulas are introduced with a sense of measure. However the Copenhagen Interpretation of the quantum theory is barely mentioned and explained. Later book gets less clear. Many experiments have been performed around the world in order to prove that Einstein was wrong, but pictures of difficult instrumentations often lack of proper connectivity with text and adequate explanations.
More about entangled states and quantum information can be found in Scientific American magazine (November 2002).

[Xiaoxue Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently finished this book in Chinese, which was published in China in 2016. I believe this is one of the best book I've ever read about quantum mechanics, particularly about one of the most significant developments in the field in recent years. The author talked with almost all the significant figures involved in the Bell's inequality theorem and the related experiments, telling the story of how John S. Bell transformed a philosophical debate between Einstein and Bohr in to a theorem that could be experimentally tested, and how the new generation of physicists, like John Clauser, Alain Aspect, Anton Zeilinger, Abner Shimony, Michael Horne, Danniel Greenberg, and Nicholas Gisin, et al, proved that entanglement could occur at distance and the entangled stated could be transported far away. That is a rare and valuable recored of quantum history, spanning from the 1960s to the 1990s.
The author, Amir D. Aczel, his background is in mathematics, but he is capable of explaining the fundamental concepts and the history of quantum mechanics in a simple and clear manner. Also, he didn't miss any names involved in the key papers, which is huge helpful for me to understand how theses discoveries were made by these great minds working together, especially when Nobel Prize went to only three of them in 2022.
As a science journalist, I'm also impressed that Dr. Aczel didn't just write the book based to on papers and materials, but took the time to speak directly with the inventors themselves. There are a lot of first hand accounts in this book. Immediately finishing the book, I really want to know who Dr. Amir Aczel is and express my gratitude and admiration for his great job. Sadly, Dr. Aczel had passed away in 2015 because of cancer. He is only 65! What a loss! Hope one day more stories will be told about quantum physics like this book, not only about what happened a century ago, which have been written extensively, but also about the work from 1960s to the present day.
R.I.P, Dr. Aczel.

[Marco Sán Sán]

Jajajaja lo intentó, pero no me entero.

Tengo claras algunas cosas. La localidad de los objetos es un fenómeno atómico, no cuántico. El mundo pequeñísimo, el de las partículas no experimenta localidad/espacio, ni distancia/tiempo. Dentro de esto, creo que entiendo la “no-localidad” de la que tanto se habla y el experimento de la rendija, no es probabilistica persé, sino una interpretación que da la localidad/materia a su principio fijo, una traducción de lo local a lo fijo.

Esto trastoca todo, es una paradoja. Como los fractales, tener longitudes infinitas en áreas finitas.

“El infinito de la vida es un infinito que se va haciendo a partir de finitos que van sucumbiendo.

El infinito de la vida no es un infinito como el del espacio, por división o el del tiempo, que es división y adición o un infinito serial, como el del número.

El infinito que es la vida es una cosa que es infinita en la medida que eleva a infinitud su propia muerte, es decir, convierte su finitud en una grandiosa, maravillosa obra de cultura y de honor para el ser humano, que es la ciencia, el amor por la ciencia. Si el hombre, la especie humana, no sabe todavía que su destino es saber y que cualquier otra cosa es perder el tiempo.”

- Antonio Escohotado.

[Todd Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quantum entanglement occurs when particles share perfectly correlated quantum states (such as spin or momentum). Measurement of the property of one particle instantaneously changes the state of the other, no matter how far apart they may be. The concept was originally developed as a thought experiment by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen to show that quantum theory couldn’t possible be true if it produced such an apparent paradox (aka - spooky action at a distance). Proving once again that the wrong ideas of very smart people are often much better and more inciteful than the best ideas conceived by the rest of us.

Entanglement by Amir D. Aczel recounts the history and implications of the phenomenon as well as the experiments performed to verify that it is, in fact, true.

I found the book to be reasonably interesting and liked that Aczel pitches the text at a level suitable for a scientifically literate lay person. He even includes a bit of math to explain the subject matter (though as a mathematician he probably couldn’t help himself).