30-Second Quantum Theory

by Brian Clegg

You know all about Schrödinger's cat, but how about his equation? How do lasers, transistors and electron microscopes work? What are the perils of renormalization? What makes a fluid a superfluid? And what will a quantum computer be capable of? Discover the history of some of science's greatest discoveries and ponder the future of physics and technology with this fascinating guide to quantum theory. 30-Second Quantum Theory tackles a mindbendingly mysterious area of physics, introducing the 50 most significant quantum quandaries and ideas. At a time when the quantum physics of electronics is an everyday essential and new quantum developments make headline news, you will visit parallel worlds, ride wave theory and learn enough to talk with certainty about Uncertainty Principle and to untangle the mysteries of quantum entanglement.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Reference

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Brian's latest books, Ten Billion Tomorrows and How Many Moons does the Earth Have are now available to pre-order. He has written a range of other science titles, including the bestselling Inflight Science, The God Effect, Before the Big Bang, A Brief History of Infinity, Build Your Own Time Machine and Dice World.

Along with appearances at the Royal Institution in London he has spoken at venues from Oxford and Cambridge Universities to Cheltenham Festival of Science, has contributed to radio and TV programmes, and is a popular speaker at schools. Brian is also editor of the successful www.popularscience.co.uk book review site and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Brian has Masters degrees from Cambridge University in Natural Sciences and from Lancaster University in Operational Research, a discipline originally developed during the Second World War to apply the power of mathematics to warfare. It has since been widely applied to problem solving and decision making in business.

Brian has also written regular columns, features and reviews for numerous publications, including Nature, The Guardian, PC Week, Computer Weekly, Personal Computer World, The Observer, Innovative Leader, Professional Manager, BBC History, Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful. His books have been translated into many languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, Thai and even Indonesian.

Reviews

[Phillip Johnson]

Good introduction to basic ideas. Having studied the fundamentals more in detail, I wonder to what extent these concepts can be engaged with on a non-mathematical basis.

[Molino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gaaaaaaah, gimme more quantum!

[Largo Vanderkelen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nog nooit ben ik zo gefascineerd geweest door iets waar ik zo ontzettend weinig van begrijp.
Vergeet alles wat je denkt te weten over licht want je wereld wordt op zijn kop gezet. Teleportatie van deeltjes? Mogelijk. Tijdreizen? Sure, why not. Niet te kraken codes? Done.
Geweldig boek en zoals altijd prachtige illustraties. Begin van een hele nieuwe fascinatie met fysica. Dikke aanrader.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elements of quantum theory briefly explained, with definitions, and featuring a few scientists...

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A birthday present book that I really enjoyed. I caught a glimpse into a weird world with this book, but feel smarter. Although I doubt I really understood much or could explain much of anything to another person. The book is hardback, and takes one concept and fits it onto one page you could read in 30 seconds. In reality, I had to re-read three times about every other sentence because I didn't get it, so it's more like 90 seconds. But, still a good concept.

Some of the more fascinating things to me were:
- Teleporting is real, done by electrons and other small particles all the time
- Light makes more sense in the quantum world. I've always been confused by the wave vs particle dichotomy.
- The quantum world is like Alice's wonderland. It bizarro and strange.
- Scientists as long as a hundred years ago or more were figuring out what protons and neutrons are made of (quarks) and then figuring out what those things are made up of. I think that's incredible.
- The light reflection on shells or fish scales has a lot to do with quantum theory.
- It's possible in theory to send a message, through waves, back in time. (Whaaaat?)

I find this stuff fascinating, even if I really don't understand it very well.

[Jim]

Just bought this so I can understand other qp books I am reading

[Etienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Très bien fait encore une fois comme l'ensemble de cette collection. Certaines théorie sont peut-être trop souvent ramenées, sous différent angle, mais tout de même. Malgré l'effort de vlgarisation des auteurs, ce livre demeure assez compelxe pour les néophytes. J'avais trouvé celui sur la physique classique assez simple à suivre, mais la physique quantique est autrement plus complexe. Très intéressant, mais demande un effort cognitif important

[Lambfield892 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent introduction but this topic bores me to death

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book itself is extremely well written. To the point where if you know the very basics of physics, you won’t just be finding it astonishing, you physically won’t be able to put it down (get it?). It explains everything in a short but straight forward manner and is actually a very easy read despite the title :)

[Vanda Hassinen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enkelt att ta till sig och lärorikt👌

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early ideas in the book touch on the bizarre, almost mystical nature of the basic building blocks of all that we know. Multiple universes, being in two places at once, being intimately tied to particles far, far away, how all of this raises questions about free will. Then we find these aren't wild, magical, unproven speculations, but key aspects of how our DVD players and MRI machines work.

I found this book thoroughly engaging and mind-blowing. It made sense (as much as any of quantum theory can) to someone whose main contact with physics since leaving high school has been science fiction. It's clear at points that some topics require many prerequisite steps before fully understanding, but the authors do a very impressive job of conveying the gist of specific subjects to a general, but interested, audience. The book includes engaging biographies of some of the major physicists involved in the development and application of quantum theory, and is chock full of illustrations without which I suspect it would be far more challenging to tell the story.

[Avi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, the book disappointed me. I knew some stuff about quantum theory already, but it seemed like this book made it more confusing to understand. I basically just ended up looking up on the internet most of the ideas and concepts in the book. However, some full explainations are still decent, the quick explanations are OK, and the book overall looked great. If you are a newcomer to quantum theory, I would recommend not to read this, but if you already know some stuff, then it might help, but I make no promises.

[Riley McCue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but I do think the audience is for people who study physics. I found it very digestible, and it helped me branch some concepts together. I enjoyed the biographical excerpts about the physicist and the chronological context. I also study quantum physics, and I don’t think I would have grasped the concepts or appreciated the significance of the discoveries without my bachelors degree, so to the commoner, beware.

I also found a few typos/errors in the book, only one that I felt changed the meaning of the text. Overall, I like the idea of this book and support its goal.

[Aga]

->Najważniejsze teorie i pojęcia fizyki kwantowej przedstawione w telegraficznym skrócie.
-> Czytelnik powinien mieć bardzo dobrze ugruntowane podstawy fizyki.
-> Mimo przekrojowego charakteru, dużo opisów jest dosyć szczegółowych, z użyciem naukowych pojęć wykraczających ponad podstawowe.
-> Dużo zagadnień w mojej ocenie było zbyt skomplikowanych by przedstawić je w tej formule i jednocześnie pozostały zrozumiałe dla laika.
-> Dla mnie zbyt trudna

[Joeydrew1122233 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a godsend, it helped me through my depression and stopped me from suicide on multiple occasions. I would give/eat my first born child to read or buy this book again. Jesus has led to me this book and the sacrifice of my left testicle will not be forgotten. Thank you for coming to my TED-talk.

[charlotté · Rating 1 out of 5]

In dem Buch gibt es einige Fehler bei der Erklärung der Quantenverschränkung, die leicht falsche Vorstellungen vermitteln können. Zum Beispiel wird gesagt, dass verschränkte Teilchen "sofortige Kommunikation über beliebige Entfernungen hinweg" ermöglichen. Das stimmt halt einfach lowkey nicht. Quantenverschränkung bedeutet zwar, dass die Zustände der Teilchen miteinander verbunden sind, aber sie erlaubt keine Informationsübertragung. Damit würde sie nämlich gegen die Lichtgeschwindigkeit als Obergrenze für jede Art von Kommunikation verstoßen, was ja auch meiner Meinung nach logisch und sichtbar ist.
Das Buch erklärt außerdem nicht klar genug, dass Quantenphysik grundsätzlich statistisch funktioniert. Es wirkt halt so, als wären die Messungen bei verschränkten Teilchen immer direkt miteinander abgestimmt. Tatsächlich aber werden die Verbindungen erst bei vielen Messungen sichtbar ein Punkt, der durch Experimente wie die von Alain Aspect in den 1980er Jahren bewiesen wurde

Eine genauere und weniger vereinfachte Erklärung hätte helfen können, Missverständnisse zu vermeiden und einfach das ganze etwas logischer und verständlicher erklären zu können.

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quantum Physics is weird. Everyone has heard one or two unusual things about atoms and how they behave, but how much do you know? Brian Clegg edits a primer on Quantum Theory and how it works.

Physics covers both the very large and the extremely small. When an object has sufficient mass, it acts predictably. If you hit a baseball in that direction and speed, the ball follows the same path every time. However, when it comes to the extremely small, our prediction methods no longer work properly. Everything is a probability at that size.

The book starts with the Ultraviolet Catastrophe and the nascent beginnings of Quantum Theory, eventually moving on to Bose-Einstein Condensates and Quantum Gravity. The book covers a wide swath of information but doesn't go too deeply into the subject. There are no equations. The book mentions the Dirac Equation or the Schrodinger Equation, but you don't get to see it.

Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.

[Fermin Quant · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a very good book as an introduction to many topics related to the quantum world. They are very simplified, since that is the purpose of the book, so it is just to whet your appetite, but many of them were exciting to learn about.
I noticed some mistakes in some of the topics which I already had understanding beforehand (one example is when explaining qubits, the book said that you store values 0-7 in 4 bits, instead of 3, and then lists them while obviously missing many in between) so it makes me wonder about the veracity and accuracy of the rest 99% of the contents which I didn't know about.
Regardless of some mistakes here and there, the book accomplishes what I bought it for, to get informed about the existence of all the concepts and see if any aroused greater interest for further exploration.

[Aleksandra Gardecka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to start with Quantum Theory and get interested in particular topics. As I already have background in chemistry some topics were simplified a bit too much for my taste, verging on being almost wrong, but I understand that's not the case for everyone and that's difficult to present such abstract and difficult topic describing it in 2 paragraphs. Overall highly recommended both for adults wanting to have a little bit of idea what the quantum thing is about, as well as for teenagers to get them interested in the topic.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well ok I’m science qualified but still I found the explanation left me unsatisfied, even frustrated.
The concept is good but of course there’s no way anyone can grasp any of these profound topics in 30 seconds. As someone else wrote you need to go on the internet to flesh out information. Also quite a few passages are not well written. So it’s a somewhat disappointing and unfortunately I’d not recommend. By the way maybe it’s me but the grey print is hard to focus on. What’s wrong with black font?

[Chris Majoor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leuk overzichtje van de gangbare concepten in de kwantummechanica. Enige voorkennis is wel aangewezen om deze wondere wereld te begrijpen. De uiteenzetting over sommige onderwerpen had voor mij wel wat uitgebreider mogen zijn, maar dat was niet echt de bedoeling van dit boek. Mooie illustraties en intermezzo's over een aantal wetenschappers.

[Ken Rideout · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much cooler sounding that it actually is in practice. I found it to be uneven, a bit sloppy at times, and kind of random. Having said that, it may offer some handles for those unfamiliar with the history or vocabulary of the field to hold onto...

I did enjoy just reading a page at a time over a few years as the book sat patiently in a corner...

[Rachel Waggoner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it was really interesting and a good introduction - It served its purpose, just a lot of it was pretty complicated though obviously that’s not the authors fault. If I actually want to learn this stuff I’m going to need to go more in depth elsewhere, which was expected. Might be worth rereading later.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very fascinating however it was more of a learning book rather than an actual fun story book. Also, it explained each topic very well but if you don't have some back round knowlage it can be very difficult to understand.

[Ray A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction for those who, like me, don't have a background in physics. I read it mostly to get some understanding of the basics of quantum physics and its philosophical implications. Reading books about the latter (as I have) without some grounding in the former can be misleading.

[Ann]

I was hoping to understand more about quantum physics by reading this book. That didn't really happen (the subject is just too abstract and complicated for my comprehension?) -- I guess I'll see if there's a "Quantum Physics for Dummies." Or maybe I'll just stick to watching Futurama.

[Mohammad Thowhid · Rating 4 out of 5]

ত্রি-চরণে স্মরি:
বইটির অন্য আরেকটি নাম হতে পারতো ‘কোয়ান্টাম থিওরি উইদাউট ইকুয়েশন’; বিজ্ঞানের জটিলতম একটি বিষয় এটি, সমীকরণ ছাড়া ভাবা যায় না। অথচ লেখকেরা ৫০টি টপিক ভীষণ সহজ ভাষায় বলে গেছেন। বিজ্ঞানের ছাত্র না-হলেও এগুলো বোঝা কঠিন হবে না।

জুন, ২০২৪ খ্রি.।

[Skord · Rating 3 out of 5]

The entries are good pointers to looking up further information but no more. The chapters are way too short to tell you anything about the subject in themselves.

[Gerrit Himschoot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Witten in very clear paragraphs and chapters. Do not expect any mathematical quotations however.

[Hassan Ahmed Al Lawati · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice for quick reading if you are not into details of quantum physics.