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Einsteins Spuk. Teleportation und weitere Mysterien der Quantenphysik
Einsteins Spuk: Das ist die Idee von der Quantenverschränkung. Offenbar können Teilchen so eng miteinander verbunden sein, dass die Messung des einen den Zustand des anderen sofort beeinflusst - egal wie weit sie voneinander entfernt sind. Einstein nannte die Verschränkung spukhaft, und tatsächlich mutet sie eher wie Magie an als wie Wissenschaft. Doch im Reich der Quanten ist ja fast alles anders, als es uns der gesunde Menschenverstand und unsere Welterfahrung vermuten lassen. Anton Zeilinger - Professor in Wien, Empfänger zahlreicher wichtige wissenschaftlicher Auszeichnungen und Bestsellerautor (Einsteins Schleier) - unternimmt mit diesem Buch den schwierigen Versuch, die Grundlagen und Geheimnisse der Quantenphysik jedem Interessierten zugänglich zu machen. Und das gelingt ihm auf verblüffende Weise.
Ganz wichtig ist dabei, dass Zeilinger mit seinen Erklärungen früher einsetzt als die meisten anderen: Zunächst klärt er erst einmal ausführlich die Grundlagen, also beispielsweise Was ist Licht überhaupt? und Was ist unter Unschärfe zu verstehen?. Dabei und auch im weiteren Verlauf des Buches setzt er außerdem zahlreiche Techniken ein, die das Verstehen und Nachvollziehen auch kompliziertester Ideen und Experimente ermöglichen: Er erfindet das Studentenpaar Alice und Bob, die Experimente durchführen, bei denen wir als LeserInnen sozusagen live und Schritt für Schritt dabei sind. Er verwendet fiktive Dialoge zwischen Alice und Bob und verschiedenen Wissenschaftlern, was durch die Frage-Antwort-Struktur unserem Vorgehen beim Lernen optimal entspricht. Er setzt Cartoons und kleine Geschichten ein. Und er scheut sich auch nicht, Informationen auf verschiedene Weise zu wiederholen. Genau das verhindert, was auch vorgebildeten Laien bei anderen Büchern zur Quantenphysik irgendwann unweigerlich passiert: dass sie an einem Punkt aussteigen, weil sie einen bestimmten Schritt nicht mehr nachvollziehen können.
Wie spannend Zeilingers Thema ist, wird dabei nicht erst dann deutlich, wenn er über die Quantenteleportation spricht (die übrigens bereits erfolgreich durchgeführt wurde, wenn sie auch nur wenig mit Beamen zu tun hat). Seine Begeisterung für die Quantenwelt überträgt sich von Anfang an auf den Leser - der Zeilinger mit Spannung, Schmunzeln und vielen Aha-Effekten durch dieses außergewöhnliche Buch gern folgen und dabei mehr von der Quantenphysik begreifen wird als je zuvor. -- Gabi Neumayer
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
117 people are currently reading
947 people want to read
About the author
Anton Zeilinger
35 books26 followers Anton Zeilinger is an Austrian quantum physicist who in 2008 received the Inaugural Isaac Newton Medal of the Institute of Physics (UK) for "his pioneering conceptual and experimental contributions to the foundations of quantum physics, which have become the cornerstone for the rapidly-evolving field of quantum information". Zeilinger is professor of physics at the University of Vienna and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information IQOQI at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Most of his research concerns the fundamental aspects and applications of quantum entanglement.
Anton Zeilinger is a pioneer in the field of quantum information and of the foundations of quantum mechanics. He realized many important quantum information protocols for the first time, including quantum teleportation of an independent qubit, entanglement swapping (i.e. the teleportation of an entangled state), hyper-dense coding (which was the first entanglement-based protocol ever realized in experiment), entanglement-based quantum cryptography, one-way quantum computation and blind quantum computation. His further contributions to the experimental and conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics include multi-particle entanglement and matter wave interference all the way from neutrons via atoms to macromolecules such as fullerenes.
Anton Zeilinger is a pioneer in the field of quantum information and of the foundations of quantum mechanics. He realized many important quantum information protocols for the first time, including quantum teleportation of an independent qubit, entanglement swapping (i.e. the teleportation of an entangled state), hyper-dense coding (which was the first entanglement-based protocol ever realized in experiment), entanglement-based quantum cryptography, one-way quantum computation and blind quantum computation. His further contributions to the experimental and conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics include multi-particle entanglement and matter wave interference all the way from neutrons via atoms to macromolecules such as fullerenes.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
December 7, 2010
Trying to understand the deeper philosophical implications of quantum physics was pretty daunting back when I was a physics student. To try to write a book that explains just that for a lay reader is pretty ambitious, but Zeilinger almost pulls it off.
I say "almost" because he still sounds like a physics professor, and a lot of the book is about the details of physics experiments that will be kind of hard to follow for those with no previous exposure. On the other hand he succeeds in explaining Bell's Inequality quite nicely...first time I've really grasped why it matters.
If you have ever been curious about wave-particle duality, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, quantum superposition (which is spooky enough), and quantum entanglement (which even Einstein thought was too spooky to be correct, but turns out to be quite real), but weren't quite ready to become a physics major, give this book a shot.
I say "almost" because he still sounds like a physics professor, and a lot of the book is about the details of physics experiments that will be kind of hard to follow for those with no previous exposure. On the other hand he succeeds in explaining Bell's Inequality quite nicely...first time I've really grasped why it matters.
If you have ever been curious about wave-particle duality, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, quantum superposition (which is spooky enough), and quantum entanglement (which even Einstein thought was too spooky to be correct, but turns out to be quite real), but weren't quite ready to become a physics major, give this book a shot.
July 3, 2013
It's not easy to write a book on quantum entanglement, and I know that. I didn't really expect to come away from this book an expert on the subject, and that would be ok. But my God, this book... it's just terrible. I mean a real piece of crap.
The first half of the book follows two characters, Alice and Bob, performing a quantum entanglement experiment for Professor Quantinger. I think the author thought he was following in the footsteps of George Gamow, who wrote a fantastic series of books following Mr. Tompkins to explain relativity and quantum mechanics. But the difference is, George Gamow was actually a talented writer, and Mr. Tompkins was actually an interesting character. Alice and Bob have got to be the most boring characters out there, and their little adventures don't do a whole lot to explain quantum entanglement.
The second half of the book is a little better, if only because there's no more Bob and Alice. But the narrative goes very quickly from the ridiculously simplistic to the ridiculously complicated. It almost feels like the two parts of the book were written by two different authors: the first assumes the reader doesn't know anything at all (I had to laugh out loud when I read the explanation of a wave: "a wave is like a wave in the ocean"), and the second assumes the reader pretty much knows all there is to know about quantum entanglement except the author's own professional work, which he is happy to talk about to no end.
The first half of the book follows two characters, Alice and Bob, performing a quantum entanglement experiment for Professor Quantinger. I think the author thought he was following in the footsteps of George Gamow, who wrote a fantastic series of books following Mr. Tompkins to explain relativity and quantum mechanics. But the difference is, George Gamow was actually a talented writer, and Mr. Tompkins was actually an interesting character. Alice and Bob have got to be the most boring characters out there, and their little adventures don't do a whole lot to explain quantum entanglement.
The second half of the book is a little better, if only because there's no more Bob and Alice. But the narrative goes very quickly from the ridiculously simplistic to the ridiculously complicated. It almost feels like the two parts of the book were written by two different authors: the first assumes the reader doesn't know anything at all (I had to laugh out loud when I read the explanation of a wave: "a wave is like a wave in the ocean"), and the second assumes the reader pretty much knows all there is to know about quantum entanglement except the author's own professional work, which he is happy to talk about to no end.
August 14, 2023
A whimsical start largely misdirected me about the difficulty of this book. While my background in physics was helpful for the first third, I quickly found myself rereading chapters, slightly lost among the proofs of abstract quantum theories. Zeilinger tried, and largely succeeded, to make this book accessible to a wider audience, but what stuck with me were the conclusions he came to, not the proofs explaining how he got there. Zeilinger clearly has an impressive Austrian mind. He did win the Nobel Prize, after all.
March 14, 2011
This book was substantially enlightening and yet amazingly frustrating at the same time. Zeilinger begins simply enough with the standard story of Alice and Bob (the physicists' personification of observer A and B), but he turns them into curious undergraduates. They are the medium through which the reader discovers the quantum world after being given an experimental opportunity by their physics professor and his postdoctoral student. The ground is covered and recovered, sometimes providing useful insight and other times being overly pedantic and annoying. Some parts are so dumbed down it may seem insulting, and this also makes the story take a loooong time to get through. On the plus side you learn quite a bit about polarization, Bell's inequality, and a number of other quantum topics.
A bit over half way through the book Zeilinger transitions away from Alice and Bob and toward even more recent experiments with quantum teleportation. Here still many parts are well explained and without too many rereads you should have a fair conception of what is going on. Unfortunately some claims are completely opaque and claims are made with no basis. That is not to say I think they are not valid, but the claims are not supported and the reader is left wondering how the author could be so painstaking on certain points and so blase on others.
If you are a patient soul and feel like you have a lot to understand with regards to quantum mechanics, I highly recommend this book. Otherwise, don't bother.
A bit over half way through the book Zeilinger transitions away from Alice and Bob and toward even more recent experiments with quantum teleportation. Here still many parts are well explained and without too many rereads you should have a fair conception of what is going on. Unfortunately some claims are completely opaque and claims are made with no basis. That is not to say I think they are not valid, but the claims are not supported and the reader is left wondering how the author could be so painstaking on certain points and so blase on others.
If you are a patient soul and feel like you have a lot to understand with regards to quantum mechanics, I highly recommend this book. Otherwise, don't bother.
November 12, 2014
Quantum physics, specifically quantum entanglement, is an intriguing concept that is not easy to grasp for even the most erudite science lover. And yet the more I read about it and the more experiments that are completed, the more fascinating it becomes. Anton Zeilinger does his best to explain quantum entanglement via photons of light by expounding on numerous experiments and some storytelling. It's a complicated subject so the author takes small steps towards building the knowledge base to understand what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance". Beginning with the two-slit experiment he then builds up to more modern experiments that include teleporation. This stuff is real. Quantum entanglement truly happens in experiments. Quantum computers are being devised as we speak. Telecommunications is attempting to use this phenomenon to increase speed and bandwidth of data. While we might not understand how light can be a particle and a wave at the same time we are able to use this unique characteristic to further our understanding of the world. Science is truly amazing at this level.
December 13, 2022
Awesome book by a physics nobel-laureate of 2022! A modern introduction to the experimental consequences of quantum mechanics! Here is a sneak peak of my most interesting note :)
Experimentally Bell´s inequalities are violated, putting to question the very nature of reality. The consequences are:
- Breakdown of realism: A property of a particle observed in experiment is not an element of reality before measurement.
- Breakdown of locality: Something is wrong with our picture of spacetime . Entangled particles remain unseparated independent of distance between them.
Experimentally Bell´s inequalities are violated, putting to question the very nature of reality. The consequences are:
- Breakdown of realism: A property of a particle observed in experiment is not an element of reality before measurement.
- Breakdown of locality: Something is wrong with our picture of spacetime . Entangled particles remain unseparated independent of distance between them.
June 14, 2025
Aiheena on kyl tosi mielenkiintoinen, mut kirjana aika pitkäveteinen. Tää vaa yappaa menemään ja sit kun päästään johkin asiaan, mikä vaatisi enemmän selitystä ja aikaa, se vaa sivuuttaa sen.
March 23, 2014
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory, physicist Niels Bohr once said, “has not understood it.” Today, more than a century after Max Planck and Albert Einstein made the first contributions to the quantum framework at the start of the 20th century, the theory is as perplexing as ever. If anything, the latest laboratory investigations have only served to highlight just how strange the quantum world is – and no one is better qualified to describe this “quantum weirdness” than Anton Zeilinger, director of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information in Vienna, where many of those experiments were carried out.
We now know, for example, that “quantum entanglement” – dismissed by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance” – is real; experiments have confirmed that if a measurement is made on one pair of entangled photons, for example, then one can describe the state of the other photon, even if it is many kilometres away. Physicists have also shown that a quantum system can be in two states at the same time (a state of affairs known as “superposition”). They can even transfer quantum information from one quantum system to another – a feat known as “quantum teleportation.” (Could we one day teleport a human being? Science fiction fans may be disappointed with Zeilinger’s answer: “an emphatic no.”) On top of all that, quantum uncertainty places fundamental limits on what we can know about a physical system. It’s not just a matter of difficult measurements; the universe itself seems to be conspiring to prevent us from pinning down every last detail.
Zeilinger has an engaging style, with much of the exposition coming by way of a dialogue between two enthusiastic undergraduate students, Alice and Bob, and their professor, Dr. Quantinger; they’re later joined by a philosophy student, Charlie. (I’m not sure how seriously we’re meant to take these characters: Alice and Bob seem suspiciously keen for first-year undergrads; and Charlie seems to have barely even heard of quantum theory until Alice and Bob fill him in. As well, Alice several times “twirls a lock of her hair,” presumably to distinguish her from the two male characters, who have no habits at all.)
What Zeilinger does best is to describe the experiments themselves, and to point out just how counterintuitive the results have been so far. As much as we would like matter to behave like so many teeny billiard balls moving through space, the universe, it seems, had other plans. And then there are the philosophical implications. Does quantum entanglement do away with “local realism”? What happens to causality if quantum events “just happen”? And what, if anything, does quantum theory say about human beings, or human minds? Unlike classical theories, quantum theory seems to require an “observer”; does this mean that consciousness plays some sort of role in the workings of the universe?
Zeilinger lays out these questions very clearly. As for the solutions – well, it could be another hundred years, one suspects, before we’ve found all the answers. (Adapted from a review I wrote for New Scientist.)
We now know, for example, that “quantum entanglement” – dismissed by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance” – is real; experiments have confirmed that if a measurement is made on one pair of entangled photons, for example, then one can describe the state of the other photon, even if it is many kilometres away. Physicists have also shown that a quantum system can be in two states at the same time (a state of affairs known as “superposition”). They can even transfer quantum information from one quantum system to another – a feat known as “quantum teleportation.” (Could we one day teleport a human being? Science fiction fans may be disappointed with Zeilinger’s answer: “an emphatic no.”) On top of all that, quantum uncertainty places fundamental limits on what we can know about a physical system. It’s not just a matter of difficult measurements; the universe itself seems to be conspiring to prevent us from pinning down every last detail.
Zeilinger has an engaging style, with much of the exposition coming by way of a dialogue between two enthusiastic undergraduate students, Alice and Bob, and their professor, Dr. Quantinger; they’re later joined by a philosophy student, Charlie. (I’m not sure how seriously we’re meant to take these characters: Alice and Bob seem suspiciously keen for first-year undergrads; and Charlie seems to have barely even heard of quantum theory until Alice and Bob fill him in. As well, Alice several times “twirls a lock of her hair,” presumably to distinguish her from the two male characters, who have no habits at all.)
What Zeilinger does best is to describe the experiments themselves, and to point out just how counterintuitive the results have been so far. As much as we would like matter to behave like so many teeny billiard balls moving through space, the universe, it seems, had other plans. And then there are the philosophical implications. Does quantum entanglement do away with “local realism”? What happens to causality if quantum events “just happen”? And what, if anything, does quantum theory say about human beings, or human minds? Unlike classical theories, quantum theory seems to require an “observer”; does this mean that consciousness plays some sort of role in the workings of the universe?
Zeilinger lays out these questions very clearly. As for the solutions – well, it could be another hundred years, one suspects, before we’ve found all the answers. (Adapted from a review I wrote for New Scientist.)
September 16, 2022
Anton Zeilinger’s “Dance of the Photons” is the most advanced book on entanglement that I have read. Strongly recommended.
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June 26, 2025Dance of the Photons compellingly illustrates a seismic shift is necessary in at least one bedrock assumption about physical reality in order to incorporate the implications of quantum entanglement experiments. The experience is startling, uncomfortable, confusing and exciting.
First out the door is a purely deterministic universe. The states of entangled particles are not only not known, they are actually undetermined prior to measurement. This implies an open future, where multiple outcomes are possible, a slaying of Laplace's demon, a breaking of a simplistic chain of cause and effect, even in nature. Unfortunately for Einstein, the "old fellow" *does* play dice!
Secondly, and quite shockingly, at least in the case of entangled particles, it appears that the mere act of measuring one has an instant influence on the other one, regardless of distance. Whether this implies a breakdown of our understanding of distance, a retreat into even more fundamental determinism (the experimenter was destined to measure what they did, despite the evidence of objective natural randomness indicated above), or time (information about the measurement is somehow proposed into the past) is an open question. In some sense everyone must pick their own intellectual sacred cow to sacrifice.
However, it seems that the cow Zeilinger hints might belong on the altar is the impermeable barrier between information and reality. Maybe the notion of the detached observer is the illusion.
Stated another way: the future is open. Uncertainty is a fundamental characteristic of even purely physical reality. How we choose to view it shapes the possibilities, and so, even in a purely physical in some sense attention *is* action.
To me, as a game designer and game lover, the exciting suggestion might be that life has more in common with game to be played than a puzzle to be solved. Because the dice are not loaded, and it seems we really get to choose our own moves.
First out the door is a purely deterministic universe. The states of entangled particles are not only not known, they are actually undetermined prior to measurement. This implies an open future, where multiple outcomes are possible, a slaying of Laplace's demon, a breaking of a simplistic chain of cause and effect, even in nature. Unfortunately for Einstein, the "old fellow" *does* play dice!
Secondly, and quite shockingly, at least in the case of entangled particles, it appears that the mere act of measuring one has an instant influence on the other one, regardless of distance. Whether this implies a breakdown of our understanding of distance, a retreat into even more fundamental determinism (the experimenter was destined to measure what they did, despite the evidence of objective natural randomness indicated above), or time (information about the measurement is somehow proposed into the past) is an open question. In some sense everyone must pick their own intellectual sacred cow to sacrifice.
However, it seems that the cow Zeilinger hints might belong on the altar is the impermeable barrier between information and reality. Maybe the notion of the detached observer is the illusion.
Stated another way: the future is open. Uncertainty is a fundamental characteristic of even purely physical reality. How we choose to view it shapes the possibilities, and so, even in a purely physical in some sense attention *is* action.
To me, as a game designer and game lover, the exciting suggestion might be that life has more in common with game to be played than a puzzle to be solved. Because the dice are not loaded, and it seems we really get to choose our own moves.
January 17, 2020
This was my first foray in to QM and I am glad I picked this book, primarily because there are a lot of myths and misinterpretations of basic QM theory and learning from a leading QM experimentalist helped avoid that pitfall. While the book doesnt have any mathematical calculations, it is by no means a breezy read. It requires dedicated studying. The highlight of this book was the professor's presentation of history of understanding of light and philosophical discussions on QM. The downside was the language is difficult and frankly its hard to understand theory with out maths. So I had to do a lot of additional research to understand the subject. On top of that I had the ebook and the figures were never on the same page as the explanations so I had to toggle a lot. QM cannot be studied in isolation because you have so many questions or misunderstandings that need to be cleared by a teacher. So in that respect no book will be able to satisfy you. But where this book succeeds is in furthering your curiosity and wonderment of the world and challenging our most established presumptions! I would recommend it but only in hard copy and when you have dedicated time. :)
August 4, 2025
Ottima trattazione della cirttografia quantistica, della correlazione quantistica (entanglement) e degli esperimenti al limite della fantascienza condotti in queste aree. Il capitolo sulla disuguaglianza di Bell è leggermente ostico, ma gli altri sono godibilissimi e particolarmente divertenti, non foss’altro per il fatto che per gran parte il saggio diventa una specie di romanzo scientifico in cui i simpatici ragazzi Alice e Bob —noti a qualunque persona si occupi di crittografia, o ne abbia un po’ sentito parlare in vita propria— che danno un bel colore alla storia e la rendono molto vivace e godibile, pur mantenendo un rigore scientifico di alto livello, che anche chi studia la materia potrà apprezzare. L’appendice finale sul famoso articolo di Einstein, Podolsky e Rosen merita da solo la lettura per la chiarezza con cui espone un tema cosí tanto trattato eppure poco compreso e abusato (ci sono troppi ciarlatani e babbei che vogliono giustificare qualsiasi cosa col «quantum», l’«entanglement» e i «uórm-hol» e quant’altro; questo libro è l’opposto di tutto ciò).
December 27, 2022
The writer is able to explain one of the most complicated areas of modern physics to a layman without using math. Kudos to him for that! I quite enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the experiments made to conclude the theories of quantum physics.
It must be incredibly hard to simplify ones work for the common public and not write like the reader is stupid or very young. The book did not succeed very well in this. Adding college freshmen ”Alice” and ”Bob” to perhaps create some sort of plot or make the complex stuff less scary, was just cringe. At some point Alice and Bob just disappear like the author got bored with them as well, and the rest of the book was much better.
It must be incredibly hard to simplify ones work for the common public and not write like the reader is stupid or very young. The book did not succeed very well in this. Adding college freshmen ”Alice” and ”Bob” to perhaps create some sort of plot or make the complex stuff less scary, was just cringe. At some point Alice and Bob just disappear like the author got bored with them as well, and the rest of the book was much better.
June 5, 2025
Illibrosiconcentraprincipalmentesuunparticolaretipodiesperimentoditeletrasportoquantisticoportatoavantidell'equipedell'autore.Buonalachiarezzaespositivaanchesesecondomededicatroppospazioalladescrizionedialcunipreliminarieaccelleratroppoquandositrattadispiegareilsuccodell'esperimento.Buonaanchelapartefinaledoveoltreacennisullanaturafilosofica-scientificadeirisultatiottenutisispieganolepossibiliimplicazionipraticheeipossibilisviluppifuturi.Anchesesinceramenteiomiapsettavochefosserocompresiinquestolibro.
September 12, 2024
It's a science book introducing the behavior of photons in the quantum manner (single photon). The spooky interaction of photon entanglement and how the experiment is implemented are explained. Further applications are discussed with emphasis on quantum computing and quantum communication. Some outlooks are made. Even human thoughts may have something to do with quantum mechanism. One interesting hypothesis can be that human has dualism of both classical and quantum properties. Human body is classical while our thoughts (soul) are quantum. Everybody has ever experienced some spooky thought/soul experience in their lives. Another hypothesis would be that the process of thinking is nothing but creating entangled particles. One is manifested as thought and can be expressed by word, the other is stored in brain as memory. When thoughts accumulate enough, neuron is created.
September 7, 2023
I read Dance of the Photons and it left me confused. That is a good thing: it seems that you don't understand quantum mechanics if you have the impression that it is all logical. Moreover, I learned that teleportation is not for humans - not until we have a real Heisenberg compensator - and that in the end, the state of things is in the eye of the beholder.
July 24, 2018
There are so many books out there that detail the shift from classical to quantum physics. This book's focus on entanglement sets it apart a little, as does the author's pedigree, but his writing style just doesn't do it for me. Still worth reading.
September 16, 2018
Ottimo come testo divulgativo, ricco di esempi che forniscono una buona intuizione sui fenomeni quantistici.
Ovviamente, essendo appunto divulgativo, lascia un po' il discorso a metà, non potendo entrare nei dettagli tecnici.
Una buona lettura per avvicinarsi al mondo della meccanica quantistica.
Ovviamente, essendo appunto divulgativo, lascia un po' il discorso a metà, non potendo entrare nei dettagli tecnici.
Una buona lettura per avvicinarsi al mondo della meccanica quantistica.
December 2, 2020
Informativ, leicht verständlich.
Ich bin nicht vom Fach, aber es las sich wie eine kompetente Einführung in ein faszinierendes Thema.
Mich hätten die Implikationen für unser Weltbild und unsere Wahrnehmung von Realität mehr interessiert; aber vielliecht gibt es darüber ja andere Bücher.
Ich bin nicht vom Fach, aber es las sich wie eine kompetente Einführung in ein faszinierendes Thema.
Mich hätten die Implikationen für unser Weltbild und unsere Wahrnehmung von Realität mehr interessiert; aber vielliecht gibt es darüber ja andere Bücher.
February 16, 2018
A step by step, complete yet simple explanation of “spooky action at a distance”, written by an actual researcher in the field. Great introduction to quantum mechanics.
October 10, 2018
Perfect realization of quantum physics in a taste of storyteller books. Would highly prefer to the students of physics whether they are on the beginner or advance level.
March 23, 2021
Non trovo che brilli particolarmente per divulgazione. Si perde in inutili lungaggini e secondo me spiega male i passaggi più complessi.
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June 25, 2022Nice book
March 24, 2023
It gave me a very good and intuitive understanding of the quantum world.
March 31, 2024
Well, it’s as complicated as the quantum mechanics but the book has been beautifully and comprehensively done.
May 31, 2025
As someone who has never studied physics, this is a great introduction to the basics of quantum entanglement.
April 22, 2019
Dance of the Photons is the only popular press book by a pre-eminent Quantum Information researcher to focus on how experiments validating the Bell Inequality inform the foundations of both quantum theory and information theory. The author, Anton Zeilinger, will most likely be awarded the Nobel prize in physics in the near future if he does not pass away beforehand. In this volume, we are treated to an amazing book outlining the setup, problem statement, conceptual issues and experimentation on Bell’s Inequality. The format largely follows the Socratic method in the guise of the well-known Alice and Bob characters from cryptography. However, here we are provided with much more character and story development as well as accompanying dialogue with Professor Quantinger (clearly a stand-in for Zeilinger) and his lab assistant.
The book lays out the experimental discovery of the EPR-pair, the canonical example of a maximally entangled state of two quanta first proposed in a paper by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen. The exposition here is the clearest in any popular press or textbook that I’ve read. The author illustrates how we can discover objective determinism in nature; namely, we track how the count of different pairs of photons vary depending on the perfect correlation or anti-correlation of their respective measured states after they go forth on separate trajectories to different locations as pre-determined by their Bell-states.
The Socratic dialogue as experienced by Alice and Bob is well-done. They are two freshman physics students working on a semester-long project for Professor Quantinger. Their main task is to observe the output of a box connected to an unknown apparatus. The students are told nothing about the experiment except that it’s related to Quantum Mechanics. As the narrative progresses, they quickly realize that the box records one of two states as output – zero and one. They also figure out that they can affect the output by turning one of two four-position knobs on either end of the apparatus. Alice and Bob come to understand that the knob controls the polarization of the apparatus and each of the four different bell states of an EPR-pair.
By experimenting with the device, they actively build models of how the various outputs are determined. Professor Quantinger and his assistant prod them along in a didactic fashion as they re-discover local realism and the hidden variables hypothesis of entanglement. It is in this re-discovery that the book shines. I have found no other mass market text that explains the Bell experiments and the logic behind them as superbly as this one does.
Alice and Bob learn that high-frequency randomization of states can be used to disprove that undetected device signalling causes the observed objective determinism of the EPR-pair. Further, they discover that entangled pairs don’t have a state until they are measured. It was this discovery that led to Feynman’s infamous absorption theory of reality – that if there is no observer, reality would not exist in any way humans understand it to exist. The fantastical nature of this theory notwithstanding, the book lays out the mechanisms behind these ideas with a rigor that would typically only be found in purely formal treatment. But here we find the explanation emerges from the Alice and Bob story and is told in a natural language without recourse to equations, theorems or proofs.
I now understand entanglement, measurement and quantum states much better for having read this book. The mathematics behind Quantum Mechanics is also now more relevant to me because of the conceptual understanding developed in this text. Some seventy percent of this book consists of the Alice and Bob story. The rest is a short exposition of the experiments and applications current as of publication date (circa 2011 to 2012), as well as Zeilinger’s own opinions on the future direction of the science. This book is a rare text from a seminal thinker in the field. Absolutely recommended.
The book lays out the experimental discovery of the EPR-pair, the canonical example of a maximally entangled state of two quanta first proposed in a paper by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen. The exposition here is the clearest in any popular press or textbook that I’ve read. The author illustrates how we can discover objective determinism in nature; namely, we track how the count of different pairs of photons vary depending on the perfect correlation or anti-correlation of their respective measured states after they go forth on separate trajectories to different locations as pre-determined by their Bell-states.
The Socratic dialogue as experienced by Alice and Bob is well-done. They are two freshman physics students working on a semester-long project for Professor Quantinger. Their main task is to observe the output of a box connected to an unknown apparatus. The students are told nothing about the experiment except that it’s related to Quantum Mechanics. As the narrative progresses, they quickly realize that the box records one of two states as output – zero and one. They also figure out that they can affect the output by turning one of two four-position knobs on either end of the apparatus. Alice and Bob come to understand that the knob controls the polarization of the apparatus and each of the four different bell states of an EPR-pair.
By experimenting with the device, they actively build models of how the various outputs are determined. Professor Quantinger and his assistant prod them along in a didactic fashion as they re-discover local realism and the hidden variables hypothesis of entanglement. It is in this re-discovery that the book shines. I have found no other mass market text that explains the Bell experiments and the logic behind them as superbly as this one does.
Alice and Bob learn that high-frequency randomization of states can be used to disprove that undetected device signalling causes the observed objective determinism of the EPR-pair. Further, they discover that entangled pairs don’t have a state until they are measured. It was this discovery that led to Feynman’s infamous absorption theory of reality – that if there is no observer, reality would not exist in any way humans understand it to exist. The fantastical nature of this theory notwithstanding, the book lays out the mechanisms behind these ideas with a rigor that would typically only be found in purely formal treatment. But here we find the explanation emerges from the Alice and Bob story and is told in a natural language without recourse to equations, theorems or proofs.
I now understand entanglement, measurement and quantum states much better for having read this book. The mathematics behind Quantum Mechanics is also now more relevant to me because of the conceptual understanding developed in this text. Some seventy percent of this book consists of the Alice and Bob story. The rest is a short exposition of the experiments and applications current as of publication date (circa 2011 to 2012), as well as Zeilinger’s own opinions on the future direction of the science. This book is a rare text from a seminal thinker in the field. Absolutely recommended.
November 1, 2016
Anton Zeilinger is an Austrian quantum physicist who in 2008 received the Inaugural Isaac Newton Medal of the Institute of Physics (UK) for "his pioneering conceptual and experimental contributions to the foundations of quantum physics, which have become the cornerstone for the rapidly-evolving field of quantum information". So, it is great that someone so close to this exciting topic of quantum entanglement has taken the time to author an explanatory tome for a popular audience. However, he chose to do much of the explanation in long stories about students doing experiments which the narrator L. J. Ganser makes to effort to enliven with different voices. So, it is like someone reading screenplay without differentiating the characters.
Some takeaway I did make:
Einstein's principle of Local Realism, the combination of the principle of locality (limiting cause-and-effect to the speed of light) with the assumption that a particle must objectively have a pre-existing value (i.e. a real value) for any possible measurement, i.e. a value existing before that measurement is made, is the key concept challenged by instantaneous information transmission in quantum entanglement.
And,
Bell's theorem (here Bell's Inequality) states that any physical theory that incorporates local realism cannot reproduce all the predictions of quantum mechanical theory. Because numerous experiments agree with the predictions of quantum mechanical theory, and show differences between correlations that could not be explained by local hidden variables, the experimental results have been taken by many as refuting the concept of local realism as an explanation of the physical phenomena under test.
Some takeaway I did make:
Einstein's principle of Local Realism, the combination of the principle of locality (limiting cause-and-effect to the speed of light) with the assumption that a particle must objectively have a pre-existing value (i.e. a real value) for any possible measurement, i.e. a value existing before that measurement is made, is the key concept challenged by instantaneous information transmission in quantum entanglement.
And,
Bell's theorem (here Bell's Inequality) states that any physical theory that incorporates local realism cannot reproduce all the predictions of quantum mechanical theory. Because numerous experiments agree with the predictions of quantum mechanical theory, and show differences between correlations that could not be explained by local hidden variables, the experimental results have been taken by many as refuting the concept of local realism as an explanation of the physical phenomena under test.
February 12, 2011
Inaccurate and misleading analogies given in place of the real science.
There is a long and uncomfortably childish fiction story about 2 students who are doing a quantum mechanical experiment.
This part of the book slow and painfully condescending to the reader...
The second half of the book is much better: the fiction pretense is dropped, and Zeilinger talks about his own work with sets of 3 and 4 entangled particles, entanglement swapping, etc. Very interesting and sometimes spooky stuff, especially the delayed choice experiment!
Occurrences of the phrase "mind boggling": Only 4. Not too bad.
There is a long and uncomfortably childish fiction story about 2 students who are doing a quantum mechanical experiment.
This part of the book slow and painfully condescending to the reader...
The second half of the book is much better: the fiction pretense is dropped, and Zeilinger talks about his own work with sets of 3 and 4 entangled particles, entanglement swapping, etc. Very interesting and sometimes spooky stuff, especially the delayed choice experiment!
Occurrences of the phrase "mind boggling": Only 4. Not too bad.
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