Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect

by Paul Halpern

One of  Physics Worlds  Best of Physics in 2020

From Aristotle's Physics to quantum teleportation, learn about the scientific pursuit of instantaneous connections in this insightful examination of our world.
 
 

For millennia, scientists have puzzled over a simple Does the universe have a speed limit? If not, some effects could happen at the same instant as the actions that caused them -- and some effects, ludicrously, might even happen before their causes. By one hundred years ago, it seemed clear that the speed of light was the fastest possible speed. Causality was safe. And then quantum mechanics happened, introducing spooky connections that seemed to circumvent the law of cause and effect. Inspired by the new physics, psychologist Carl Jung and physicist Wolfgang Pauli explored a concept called synchronicity, a weird phenomenon they thought could link events without causes. Synchronicity tells that sprawling tale of insight and creativity, and asks where these ideas -- some plain crazy, and others crazy powerful -- are taking the human story next.


 

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Psychology, History, Technology

304 pages, Hardcover

Published August 18, 2020

About the author

Acclaimed science writer and physicist Dr. Paul Halpern is the author of fourteen popular science books, exploring the subjects of space, time, higher dimensions, dark energy, dark matter, exoplanets, particle physics, and cosmology. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and an Athenaeum Literary Award. A regular contributor to NOVA's "The Nature of Reality" physics blog, he has appeared on numerous radio and television shows including "Future Quest" and "The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special".

Halpern's latest book, "Einstein's Dice and Schrodinger's Cat," investigates how physicists Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrodinger battled together against the incompleteness and indeterminacy of quantum mechanics. Their dialogue inspired Schrodinger's famous thought-experiment about a cat in a box that is in a mixed state between life and death until it is observed. They struggled to find a unified field theory that would unite the forces of nature and supersede quantum weirdness. Sadly they would never find success and their efforts would lead to a fiasco.

More information about Paul Halpern's books and other writings can be found at:
phalpern.com

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 2 out of 5]

How To Mistreat An Idea

I have always favoured Jung’s psychology, mainly because he has much more to say about how his mind works than mine. This is important because in the quest to get language to conform to reality (that is to say science) Jung knew that there really wasn’t anything else to understand than his own mind.

For Jung the Unconscious, specifically his own, was reality. The contents of the Unconscious are fundamentally indistinguishable from the world at large. His hypothesis that others share some of the unconscious ‘stuff’ is confirmed most notably by language, but also by the persistent (and consistent) descriptions that are found in legends, dreams, and moral tales of heroic figures, gruesome tragedies, and unbearable fears. His psychology merely suggests looking for these in oneself as a possible source of inspiration, consolation, or hope.

So I don’t think it is correct to say that Jung was attempting to map reality with his idea of synchronicity, except that this reality was a part of his own psyche. I don’t think Halpern appreciates this about Jung’s thinking. Synchronicity is a linguistic description of a component Jung’s mind not the cosmos. It is the process of imagination in which cause and effect simply does not take place; or rather, if it does take place it has nothing to do with the outcome of the process - typically an instantaneous, irrational, often counter-intuitive glimpse of a unification or reconciliation, or alteration of the contents of one’s head.

The crucial thing about the Unconscious, however, something even Jung didn’t fully recognise, is that it is allergic to language. In fact it seems to have a great antipathy to language, undermining it, distorting it, and abusing it in ways that serve the ends of the Unconscious not the demon language. This applies a fortiori to scientific language, including mathematics, as it is constantly revealing that language can never conform with non-language. Imaginative leaps we may see as ‘progress’ are really the message from the Unconscious that words are not really things to be trusted.

So to criticise Jung for being unscientific in his views about synchronicity is wrong. Halpern thinks he was positing a law of nature analogous to cause/effect. I think the term was meant to relativise not just the concept of causality but all pretence about our ability to correlate words with things that are not words. It is clear from Halpern’s own historical survey of physical theories that all attempts to do so have been fundamental failures, not simply inaccuracies or approximations but complete fictions.

Synchronicity is not some newly discovered force (force as a concept is in fact in general retreat in physics; it may soon be relegated to the scientific junk room of mythical entities). Neither is it an inspiring metaphor (what could it be ‘like’ after all). Synchronicity is a fiction. Its distinguishing characteristic is that it is explicitly so. And its referent is not the cosmos but the mind. If it meant anything else, the Unconscious would suggest some other term to replace it.

I do not have the intellectual capacity to judge either Halpern’s physics or his history of science. But I think he seriously misconstrues Jung. Jung makes this easy for him because he desperately wanted to be considered ‘scientific.’ So he sometimes says things in the genre of physics rather than psychology. But he is perfectly clear that synchronicity is a psychic not a physical phenomenon when he says in his 1950 treatise, “Synchronistic events rest on the simultaneous occurrence of two different psychic states”. It doesn’t occur ‘out there’ but ‘in here.’ In his exposition on synchronicity, he in fact distances himself from physics entirely: “The so-called ‘scientific view of the world’… can hardly be anything more than a psychologically biased partial view which misses out all those by no means unimportant aspects that cannot be grasped statistically.”

Jung did fall for the suggestion of the quantum physicist, Pauli, to ‘generalise’ his concept. This, I think was unfortunate and dragged Jung away fro his most important insight. Nevertheless even then Jung continued to treat the matter as purely psychic through the use of Pauli’s dream material. I suppose what I object to most in Halpern’s book is the suggestion that synchronicity, properly considered, is a concept on which to build new science. It seems to me that this is precisely the opposite of Jung’s original intention. Synchronicity is not a scientific concept but a warning against the perceived finality of any scientific concept. It is not meant to halt science, just make it a bit more humble by indicating that its results must never be confused with reality.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consider the idea of synchronicity: a term coined in 1930 by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung as an “acausal connecting principle.” Though he'd attribute the idea to dinner discussions with Einstein about relativity, along with personal analyses of dreams, coincidences, and cultural archetypes, the notion took flight after discussions with (Linus) Pauli about novel aspects of quantum physics that distinguished it from classical mechanistic determinism. In retrospect, Jung's insights about the need for a new acausal principle in science were brilliant and prescient. Nonetheless his low threshold for accepting anecdotal evidence about “meaningful coincidences” without applying statistical analysis to rule out spurious correlations was a serious failing in his work. Jung trusted his intuitive sense of when things were connected. But in light of the mind's capacity to fabricate false linkages at times, pure intuition on its own is not genuine science.

”We don't allow faster than light neutrinos in here,” said the bartender. A neutrino walks into a bar.

Like Carl Jung (apparently), I was fascinated by the basic concepts of quantum mechanics the first time they were introduced to me and, like Jung, I have dabbled in misinterpreting what the theory has to say about how I, and all of human consciousness, fit into this illusory world. Who doesn't see themselves as the focal-point of a me-centric cosmos, solipsistically parsing coincidence as personalised messages from the universe itself? (Surely, not just me?) Although I haven't read any of Jung's works (despite being intrigued by his concepts of universal archetypes, the shadow, and the collective unconscious whenever I come across them), I have also long been fascinated by (what I understand of) Jung's theory of synchronicity – in the sense that I don't really believe in it as an immutable force of nature, but can't shake the feeling that it operates in my own life. To be sure: I'm a dabbler, a magpie of ideas, and as Synchronicity appeared to relate scientifically to some of my more esoteric interests, I suspected it would be right in my wheelhouse. And it was. But it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Starting at the very dawn of recorded scientific theory, author Paul Halpern traces the history of thought on cause and effect; and in particular, how that concept relates to light and the evolution of thought as to whether its speed has a definite, and unbreakable, upper limit. I loved everything about this historical journey – and especially loved learning how, throughout the ages, rational scientists have been unwilling to give up their more irrational beliefs in the face of indisputably contradictory evidence – and even when the narrative arrives at relativity, collapsing wave functions, and quantum entanglement, Halpern's writing is clear and explanatory enough to have not gone over my head. Ending with modern quantum theory (and seemingly acausal connections that have nothing to do with the universe sending me messages), Synchronicity is a fascinating read, beginning to end; not what I expected from the publisher's blurb but right up my alley nonetheless. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

The advent of quantum mechanics was jolting for those traditionalists who used physics to divide the world into two parts: things that, at least in principle, might objectively be measured, on the one hand, and intangible phenomena, on the other. The latter category included things such as consciousness, the sense of free will (even if it turned out to be illusory), ethics, aesthetics, and other abstractions that seemed hard to quantify but were universally accepted to be real, along with all manner of purported supernatural and spiritual entities, from divine beings to ghosts, that attracted some scientifically minded individuals, but certainly not all. Certainly, thanks to movements such as psychic determinism, it had become fashionable in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries for some thinkers to argue that eventually everything will find objective, mechanistic explanation.

It's common knowledge that in our earliest days, there was no distinction made between the natural and the supernatural; it was perfectly logical to believe that the sun was being driven across the sky every day in a golden chariot. And when later thinkers began trying to separate the mundane from the divine, they still allowed their observations of what is to be coloured by their preconceptions of what ought to be; a prejudice that seems to dog us to this day. The Pythagoreans believed that numbers and geometry were the fundamental building blocks of the universe; leading to a study of numerology and a search for the “harmony of the spheres”. Plato also embraced an idealised view of the cosmos, and rather than seeking to make conclusions about reality based on observation, he endeavored to intuit its underlying perfection; what he called “forms”. And while Aristotle did embrace a type of observation-based scientific method, he described the solar system as geocentric with the sun, moon, and planets revolving around the Earth in circular orbits (although this doesn't perfectly jibe with their observed paths) because this was aesthetically pleasing to him; an unsupported idea that then persisted through the Middle Ages and the invention of the telescope. Johannes Kepler (who supplemented his income with writing horoscopes, as did many astronomers throughout history) used Tycho Brahe's breakthrough astronomical observations to create a heliocentric model of the universe, but was distracted by his quest to fit the five Platonic solids within the orbits of the five (known) planets. When Albert Einstein's theories of relativity opened the door to quantum entanglement (acausal, faster than light, events that can apparently even reverse the arrow of time), he refused to accept the logic of the math, dismissing it as “spooky action at a distance” that offended his own sensibilities. In more recent times, physicists have been intrigued by the Sommerfeld fine structure constant (the “sacred” inverse of 137, or very nearly that number) that some believed proved...something significant. Even today: “Although experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and elsewhere have yet to provide a hint of evidence for supersymmetry, many theorists remain optimistic, largely because of the concept's mathematical elegance.” I loved all of these stories as a connecting narrative of how scientific thought has developed over the millennia, but the most fascinating story that Halpern tells is about the strange collaboration between Carl Jung and Linus Pauli.

Pauli would cling in his later years to the visions of nature he held dear. Hardheaded when it came to judging others' theories, he remained emotionally committed to the idea that symmetry guides the universe. In a kind of cosmic seesaw all things must balance: spin up accompanied spin down, positive charge goes hand in hand with negative charge, synchronicity offers a counterpart to causality, back-in-time mimics forward-in-time, and mirror reflection echoes the original. In the traditions of Pythagoras, Plato, and Kepler, such was the symmetric world he cherished – a flawless, precious crystal.

I would love to read a book that just focuses on the relationship between Jung and Pauli – each of these seminal thinkers taking just enough from each other's theories to misinform their own ideas. That the misanthropic Pauli benefited from Jungian psychotherapy is a good thing – and I don't think it's too weird that Pauli often dreamed the solutions to the problems that deviled him in his waking hours; don't we all? – but the fact that he was the cause of the “Pauli effect” (apparently, sensitive lab equipment would break down every time Pauli even entered a university's science building) would naturally lead the great physicist to look for a justification for synchronicity at the quantum level. And Jung understood just enough of modern physics at the “colloquial level” to believe he had found the missing link between mind and matter – opening the door to some of today's most scientific sounding pseudoscience.

The cosmos is simply not a friendly place for know-it-alls; rather, like a James Joyce novel, it invites partial understanding.

I don't know if I've done Synchronicity justice in this review – these are simply the parts that seemed most shiny and collectible to my magpie mind – but I'll reiterate that I found this to be a totally fascinating, well-written, and educational read.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little bit of Jung, little bit of Pauli, even a little bit of Sting. I liked it. Nothing out of this world, but a nice introduction (maybe a weak-force above introduction) on many of the connections in the Universe and the minds that explore(d) them. The writing is at times beautiful and the narrative doesn't fall into any worm-hole sized digressions, so that is always nice.

[Xavier Hugonet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Synchronicity is a non-fiction hard science book, by Professor Paul Halpern.


« Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. », Arthur C. Clarke

« Reality is non local », Bell’s theorem correlate.


When I picked Synchronicity, I thought I was going to read a treaty leaning toward proving the actual existence of this phenomenon. I am a firm believer in synchronicity, having experienced too much of it in my life to ignore it. I’m even under the feeling that I’m constantly riding a synchronicity wave.

I was mistaken. This book wasn’t what I expected at all. However, it turned out to be the best book on the history and principles of physics I’ve ever read during my 45 years on our Earth.

Synchronicity is, at its core, a densely packed book presenting the history of physics (but also of other related fields such as biology and astronomy) through the history of well known, and less known figures of import to the advances of science. The author presents them, articulate their discoveries, their relationships, and even gives us a window in their personal lives and history.

Paul Halpern covers everything, from the antique philosophers (our first scientists), to the wonders of current advances in quantum mechanics, with classical mechanics and relativity (of course) in between.

He does it in a precise way, going over advanced notions of each theory, but in such a manner that the book is accessible to anyone. And, this is no small feat.


Carl Jung is the first to have coined the term synchronicity. The search for meaningful patterns in coincidences. It’s no secret that Jung had a fondness for the supernatural, which ultimately led to his break with Freud. Both psychologists had met Einstein, but they didn’t agree on its teachings applied to their field.

In this book, the advent of quantum mechanics is clearly presented as an inflexion point. Albert Einstein, at first rebutted by those inferrings of « Spooky action at a distance » slowly changed his mind and participated in some great advances to quantum science.

« The balancing act between pure empiricism and mathematical abstraction [proves] tricky ». Some renegade scientists turn away from realism as they make « encounters with the pliable nature of reality ». « The firewall that science had carefully constructed in the late nineteenth century between the tangible and the mystical […] no longer seemed so solid », and, for some, the supernatural might no be so super after all.

That’s also when philosophy circles back and makes a crashing return into the field of science. And, everything got turned upside down. For some years, and still today, experimentalist have taken delight in observing events not explainable by currents theorists, such as entangled macro objects, or the reversal of the arrow of time.

It is interesting, then, to realize that some of the quantum physics principles, such as the duality nature of light (both a particle and a wave), were observed centuries or millennia before the term quantum had even been uttered. Never underestimate antique philosophers.

David Hume, a 18th century philosopher, wrote « Pure belief in causal connections stems from our impressions ». Was he already questioning the nature, or even the very existence of objective reality ?

To return to the experiment I alluded to above, backward causality seems to imply a non-linearity of time, or even question the existence of time itself other than something we, as observers, would need to experience causality. If there is no time, if reality is non local and, as such, objective reality doesn’t exist... Those are questions we better not ponder too much.

As for synchronicity, it’s the glue guiding the story of the book. « Jung began to ponder the notion of non local influences » long before we truly observed them in experimental settings. But, « How to separate the real from the illusory, true patterns from meaningless coincidences ? »

Is synchronicity the natural tendency of our mind to find connections where there are none, or are there really patterns in which would then not really be coincidences anymore ?

The author doesn’t give us an answer in his conclusion, but he gives us all we need to form our own opinion. Including, cherry on the cake, an extensive bibliography that can make for weeks of fascinating reading.


* Paul Halpern, PhD, is a professor of physics at the University of Sciences of Philadelphia, and author of numerous popular science books. He also appeared on The Simpsons.

** All parts quoted in this review come from the actual book, except for the two initial ones.


Thanks to Perseus Books, Basic Books, and Netgalley for the ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.

[Paperclippe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I... don't know what this book is about.

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. The blurb purports, "From Aristotle's Physics to quantum teleportation, learn about the scientific pursuit of instantaneous connections in this insightful examination of our world."

And I guess that's true?

But a lot of it seems like a meandering digression into the lives and times of all the characters involved. In fact, what it reads very much like is Just Another Pop-Sci Book Purporting to Get the Reader Up to Speed on All Things Quantum, but Never Actually Getting There.

I'm pretty sure I made it to 71% before the word "synchronicity" was used at all, and that was in the context of Carl Jung. And that would be fine, if the next six percent of this book weren't then a literal retelling and interpretation of Wolfgang Pauli's dreams. I shit you not.

This book is the opposite of "presented without context." This book is all context and no premise. This would have been a really awesome pamphlet. I understand that the history of physics is important to any discussion that touches on the quantum, but I genuinely feel that I would be better educated on the subject matter at hand if an editor had reached down from on high and stripped away 60% of this book. There is a loose thread linking the myriad vignettes presented within, one that purports to be about quantum cause and effect, but what it reads like is someone who very much wants to tell you their thesis, but forgetting to tell you what their thesis is, but being really excited about it regardless.

[Dan Graser · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is purportedly on a subject of great interest to me, I don't think it quite lives up to the potential. There are two main reasons for this, firstly, there is way too much historical information on primitive notions of light and the cosmos that most readers will already be aware of and could also have served as the historical backdrop to a discussion of any number of contemporary subjects in quantum physics as the workings of even Enlightenment era philosophers and scientists seems hopelessly general and removed from our modern understanding, to say nothing of the ancient Greeks with which Halpern begins. I suppose if you have never read a physics book for the layperson and are unaware of early "atomist" theories and the history of our understanding of light, specifically, perhaps you will find this information useful. However, given that there are about 300 pages in this book and you only get to the 20th century around page 150, the notion that entanglement and synchronicity are going to be discussed in depth slowly disintegrates.

Where Halpern is strongest is detailing the relationship between Jung and Pauli and the origins of the very word, synchronicity, as well as the somewhat mystical and woowoo notions both of these great figures had, despite their great regard within their respective fields. This section presented a depth of history about which I was unaware and essentially made this worth the read. Also, I appreciate that Halpern doesn't go down the endlessly stupid and pseudo-scientific/spiritual rabbit holes that this area of physics invites among the unlettered. His health skepticism keeps the conversation coherent and level-headed.

The second issue with the work is that he leaves very little time to discuss the modern studies currently being pursued in this area and in fact this is most thoroughly discussed in the conclusion. As a result, proportionally, you are actually given a book that details humanity's historical understanding of light with a small coda on the intersection of quantum entanglement with Jung's conception of synchronicity, which, I was under the impression based on the title was to be the main subject of the work. Halpern is a fine guide though I certainly would have loved more discussion on the book's alleged focus.

[Alexander Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oddly soothing Audible book. Trippy as hell. I probably understood 5% of what I was supposed to understand, and I still loved it.

[Owlseyes]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have given this book an extra star had I not already known most of the material in this book. The beginning was a history lesson in astronomy and physics that felt like filler to me. On the other hand, if you are unaware of the history of astronomy and physics then that part might be helpful, but there seemed to be a presumption that the reader already knew this history, so the author was simply reminding the reader. Well... I already knew the history, and while I wouldn't have minded a review, I didn't need that much of a review. Thus it felt like filler to me.

The main part of the book revolves around the famous psychiatrist Dr. Carl Jung who coined the word synchronicity which he defined as "meaningful coincidences". In other words, things that happen at the same time without any apparent causal effect but seem to be profound.

An example might be the feeling one gets that one should delay leaving the house. It's just a moment's feeling, so one delays and then proceeds. Then as one is driving one comes upon a terrible traffic accident and one wonders "Was I given a warning in order to prevent me from getting into that accident?" I don't know. Certainly it doesn't hurt anything to think that way, and it makes one feel special. However, it becomes problematic when scientists think that way about their work.

I'm not talking about inspiration. Scientists generally have a feeling where they ought to begin an investigation and how they ought to go about it. Part of that is based on facts, but part on intuition as well. Nothing wrong with that, but to ascribe intuition to photons and spin particles is a little too weird for words. Yet quantum mechanics suggests (actually proves) that something "spooky" in the universe is going on behind the scenes. Quantum mechanics physicists generally ignore the spooky part and focus only on the result. But Albert Einstein opposed the idea in quantum mechanics of "spooky action at a distance." Einstein was a determinist. He believed that regardless of what the math implied, there must be some underlying mechanism of cause and effect, so that the universe is predictable... a clockwork universe. As he said, "G-d does not play dice with the universe" or words to that effect.

For a more detailed and comprehensible treatment on the subject, I suggest reading "Spooky Action at a Distance: The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time—and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything" by George Musser.

Back to "Synchronicity," the physicist and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli delved into the paranormal and went to Dr. Jung for analysis, and dream interpretation. The book gets really weird at that point, painting Dr. Pauli and Dr. Jung as a couple of nuts who believed in UFOs and telepathy. Regardless of what the reader might think of these scientists, the author should have remained neutral. Many millions of people have benefited from Carl Jung's work. He should not be discounted and neither should Dr. Pauli regardless of what they thought at the time. The world at that time was changing radically, Anything might have been possible because once one abandons the idea of determinism and causality (see non-locality) the world seems like magic.

For a better example of a biographical treatment of the strange beliefs of a scientist, try reading, "Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science" by Lawrence M. Krauss or from the author, Paul Halpern, himself in his book "Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat: How Two Great Minds Battled Quantum Randomness to Create a Unified Theory of Physics".

FYI, I do not believe in UFOs in the sense of little spaceships visiting earth from faraway stars. I know that the Bible suggests that there is an afterlife and that some people in the afterlife can be contacted. Many people (including prominent scientists) during the lifetimes of Dr. Pauli and Dr. Jung believed that. (For a good fictional account of this common idea of the time, read "To Say Nothing of the Dog" by Connie Willis.) Do I believe in an afterlife? Yes. I suppose I do although I do not know the nature of the afterlife. However, my religious beliefs, generally speaking, do not inform my academic view of the world. Thus, I might say, while in synagogue, that the universe was created over 5,700 years ago, but when evaluating the works of Stephen Jay Gould such as "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History", or "Dinosaur in a Haystack", I use the scientific/academic estimate of the age of the universe which seems to change from time to time but is around 13 billion years old.

So, I was unhappy with the author's treatment of this subject, but I was VERY happy with the author's OTHER book, "Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat: How Two Great Minds Battled Quantum Randomness to Create a Unified Theory of Physics". Try that one instead. It does mention Dr. Pauli but only briefly, and I don't recall Dr. Jung being mentioned at all.

I doubt I will read this book again.

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

SYNCHRONICITY by Paul Halpern is a fascinating look at physics and quatum mechanics; specifically, about the connections between cause and effect in the physical and quantum realms of the universe. Written for a general audience, this book provides a sort of history of astronomy and physics from the ancient Greeks all the way up to Einstein and other modern physicists and cosmologists.

One of the interesting aspects of this run through the history of the physical sciences is how popular theories would hold the status of "true" science for sometimes centuries until someone was brave enough and thorough enough in their new theory to cause the scientific community to take their radical new ideas seriously. Because the speed of light is one of the most important physical constants known, a lot of information is shared on how the differing ideas on the properties of light and its ultimte speed are focused on. Only when instrumentation becmae specific and advanced enough were physicists able to truly establish the correct speed for the speed of light.

This book also surveys other important physical constants such as gravity as other ways of exploring how the cause/effect cyly works in nature. And them science led to the discovery of the possible existence of particles and energies that might be connected without any particular causes --- leading to the coining of the term "synchronicity" for physical connections with no apparent causes between them. A fascinating inquiry into how the cosmos and world works and what science may reveal to humanity in the not-too-distant future.

[Jeff Wong · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It is a difficult book to read due to the subject matter. It is actually quite well-written and I feel as if I learned a lot, however, I think my own personal failing is that many of these concepts are too theoretical and abstract for me to fully comprehend. Nonetheless, the discussion that the author examines takes the reader back through essentially the history of both classical and quantum physics, includes all of the seminal discoveries and delves quite deeply into the individuals involved. Einstein, Pauli, Heisenberg, and Schrodinger (in the more modern era) are certainly highlighted but ample space is devoted to Emmy Noether and Shiung Wu, two women whom the author believes have not enjoyed enough recognition for their contributions to what is known. I do feel as if I have a somewhat better grasp on quantum entanglement than I did prior to reading this book.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at physics, the quantum world and the origins of synchronicity. I took umbrage with Halpern's discrediting of Jung's collective unconscious. He says that there's no scientific proof of its existence. Of course there isn't - something like the collective unconscious would operate outside the realm of verifiable science, which consists of empiricism and logical analysis. It's like the problem of science being an unable to prove the existence of God: why would a diety make himself known to his creation? Wouldn't that thwart the purpose of free will and the nature of life itself? We must arrive at such a conclusion not through our heads but our hearts, as trite as that may sound. Science and the irrational must never be mixed - synchronistic events lie in the realm of the latter. Admittedly I skipped the last 50 odd pages because it just became too dry. But it's clear Paul is a formidable intelligence and for the most part I enjoyed his turn of phrase, his description.

[Jordi Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book thesis is that there is more than just causality in Nature: there is also sinchronicity, which stands for natural phenomena that happens because of existing correlations between particles no matter how afar they are, and instantaneously.

This is what quantum entanglement is, and what explains quantum computing, for example.

The author goes back to the Ancient Greeks in order to give a basis to his point, a detour I did not like at first. However, once I finished the book, I changed my mind because the wrap up the author gives of all the material in the book is that well done.

The concepts are explained in a way that everyone can understand, though I am afraid you'd better be a usual reader of Science books. Casual readers who do not know anything about quantum entanglement and its spooky action at a distance might not see why this matters so much in modern Physics.

Overall a great book.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read another easy books on this matter, and I liked best this one for the structure and easier way of presenting a very complex matter. Entertaining when introduces as well historical references that gives a more human insight of the scientific stars (Einstein, Pauli, Jung). On the other hand, I wouldn't dismiss the theories of psychologists as not having the capacity to demonstrate their assertions. Without a Einstein brain capable of unfathomable thinking to reach his theories wouldn't be any theory, and we have a map of brain anatomy and physiology, but still we don't know how it works. Understanding how thinking works is in a my opinion a dimension clearly as difficult as the quantum questions, and in need to understand.

[John E Mack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been given this book a "5,"let me gripe about it. It wastes way too much time on pre-twentieth century developments before it starts talking about relatively and quantum theory. And wastes time talking about Jungian psychology why it should be laser focused on causal and causal physical phenomena. And it should have been talking a lot more about the nature and viability of non-causal theories, since these contradict common sense. Nevertheless, this is a very good book. It might have been usefully labelled, How to Integrate Wonder into Science Without Lapsing into Mysticism..

[Clara Coulson · Rating 4 out of 5]

[ Cross-posted to Comments by Clara ]

Every now and again, I have an itch to read a science book to learn more about the scientific concepts that I only touched on in school (I majored in finance and English, so I only ever scraped the surface of science classes). Having had one of those itches recently, I decided to give Synchronicity a try.

Synchronicity provides a fairly in-depth look into the evolution of physics across the ages, starting all the way back with the ancient Greek philosophers. The book discusses the gradual development of human understanding of the major forces at play in the universe—such as gravity and electromagnetism—and their relationship to the complex concept we call “light.”

The book touches on many of the contributions of the “big names” in physics throughout the generations, as well as some of the lesser-known people who contributed important discoveries and theories that were gradually folded into our modern understanding of physics. Galileo, Kepler, Pauli, Einstein, and many more are mentioned thorough the text, and the author takes the time to examine how some of their complicated personal lives influenced the outcomes of their professional work.

Overall, I thought the author thoroughly explored the main topic in a sufficiently organized manner and constructed a solid timeline that clearly shows exactly how drastically human understanding of physics has evolved and how that understanding has impacted the development of society. While I did find the text a little dense in places—for my taste, of course—I can’t deny that it’s a very well researched and well structured reference text that anyone with a serious interest in the history of physics should add to their bookshelf.

Rating: 3.5/5

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Thanks to NetGalley and Basic Books for providing me with an eARC of Synchronicity.

[Mack · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like I was learning, more than in other similar books, but then there was a sudden turn from physics to paranormal research. I felt angry and betrayed. Everything I thought I learned was tainted, called into question. Has anyone read this? Did you feel that his science was good? I’ve read two other books by the same author, and now I wonder, did it only seem accurate?

[Erik Molnar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly everything between the first chapter and the last chapter was a who is who of physics and quantum physics. I still enjoyed it. Synchronicity is something that follows me everywhere. Is it just my brain recognizing patterns where there is none or is there something else at work? Science!

[Fatih Guvenen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hesitated between 3 and 4 stars. The book is fine but I had already read quite a bit on the topic so for me there wasn't too much new. İf you don't know much about the topic you'll probably like it.

[Ravi Warrier · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me this was just another book chronicling the history of quantum mechanics and only for that reason its got a 2-star rating.

For others who may not have read much on the subject, this can be an interesting book with lots of insights into the story of quantum physics/mechanics.

[Madison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loveeee a book loaded up on historical context. A nice, succinct overview of causality and the evolution of our understanding on what makes the universe tick; in both physics and nature (and psychology!)

[Lynn Howard · Rating 1 out of 5]

THE MOST MISLEADING TITLE EVER!
On my Kindle, I had to get to 65% before the topic of synchronicity was introduced -then a long digression before a return to the topic at around 90% - even then only superficially.
DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU'RE ACTUALLY INTERESTED IN THE TOPIC OF SYNCHRONICITY!

[Gabrielle Birchak · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book! Here is the link to my review: https://mathsciencehistory.com/2020/1...

[Tim Dugan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Side interesting anecdoteS

But after a while impatience won out: where the hell is this book going?

Could have had more science

[melissa Fujimoto]

Wonderfully written, a must read for those curious minds of the world in which we live.

[Normandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

So little science and so much philosophy. Also a lot of pseudo science: stand all that dream interpretation, esp, telepathy and so forth. If you are looking for a science book this is not it.

[Noura AF · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cause and effect briefly explained away from mysticism and superstition. This is a great book about the scientific endeavor to understand synchronicity.

[Scott Chambers · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a tough slog to read but chapters 8 through the conclusion were really good if you get to them or jump a few chapters.

[sonja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Barely three stars.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good summary of historic thinking about quantum theory and causality and the entertaining characters involved leads to thought provoking ideas about entanglement and the idea of synchronicity The tie to Jung helps us understand the way the concept developed.
You will need a strong interest in the principles of physics to stay the course.