Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science | 
| Author: David Lindley
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 5804
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 1400079969
Dewey Decimal Number: 530
EAN: 9781400079964
ASIN: 1400079969
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
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Product Description
Werner Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” challenged centuries of scientific understanding, placed him in direct opposition to Albert Einstein, and put Niels Bohr in the middle of one of the most heated debates in scientific history. Heisenberg’s theorem stated that there were physical limits to what we could know about sub-atomic particles; this “uncertainty” would have shocking implications. In a riveting account, David Lindley captures this critical episode and explains one of the most important scientific discoveries in history, which has since transcended the boundaries of science and influenced everything from literary theory to television.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 God Not Only Plays Dice, She Cheats! April 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Richard Feynman once remarked, perhaps apocryphally, that if anyone told you they `understood' quantum theory, that the one thing you could depend on is that they had missed something. That is why I find it interesting that many of the `so-so' or negative reviews of this book focus on the issue that it does not impart an `understanding' of quantum theory or mechanics. The entire point of the book is the debate between `determinism,' the idea that everything is knowable (understandable), and `uncertainty,' the idea that nothing can be `known' in the ultimate sense as everything exists only as a probability.
So, in the limited sense, this book will not allow you to `understand' quantum mechanics; if you are a careful reader you will see that `understanding' in the common sense is impossible if you accept uncertainty.
In the past few years there have been many books about particle physics, string theory, cosmology, and such which are more or less dependent on the idea that at the heart of the matter uncertainty rules the function of physics on both the large and the small scale. Rutherford once asked Bohr what `caused' the electron to shift from one state to another; Bohr spent most of the rest of his life trying to explain that the question was irrelevant; nothing `causes' the shift; it is a probability function. At the larger scale Edward Tryon said "our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."
I really admire this book because it does focus on the personalities of the big players in this debate, something other reviewers have criticized. But unless you understand the background of these giants of science you will not understand why some of them resisted the idea of indeterminism even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
But the debate continues with some popular writers, Dinesh D'Souza, `What's So Great About Christianity?,' for example, who wish to maintain that all scientists accept a deterministic model of the Universe and that this constitutes a sort of `religious faith' in causality. The fact is that most scientists ignore the issue as it has little to do with day to day science. But if you are at all interested in what the debate means in so far as particle physics and cosmology is concerned, this book is an excellent primer on the topic. Because the book does not present a comprehensive, non-mathematical, explanation for quantum mechanics should not be seen as a fault, it's `simply one of those things.'
More Certain about Uncertainty February 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science
Having only a sophomore physics formal education, I find myself hopelessly overwhelmed by most books on theoretical physics. Lindley's
"Uncertainty" is by contrast highly readable (I am only occasionally overwhelmed.) The author seems to make the participants come to life and places there complex theories in the context of a larger philosophy.
 "boltzmann's atom" is of another class November 5, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I appreciated very much the earlier work
by the same author about the history of the atomic hypotheses.
This book starts in a promising way, seeming to lead soon to an in-depth
analysis of uncertainty. But it never keeps up to the promise. The very point of the discussion gets out of focus, stirred in the pan along
with uninteresting recounts about Bohr's vacations and Heisenberg's psychological attitude towards colleagues.
This is a nice reading when waiting in a barber's shop, but
if you want to read something deep about uncertainty, look elsewhere.
 Uncertainty September 20, 2007
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
A good book. Makes a difficult topic - - quantum mechanics and some particle physics - - understandable for non-experts.
Elegant and exciting September 1, 2007
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
I read two graduate texts on quantum mechanics recently. The first took an historical approach, beginning with Planck's work on black-body radiation, then Einstein's treatment of Brownian motion and light quanta, proceeding on to Bohr's atom, Compton scattering, the Zeeman effect, and so on. The second started out by saying (I paraphrase), "Here's Schroedinger's equation. The rest of the book goes through various solutions, with different potentials."
I find it completely incredible that this little equation can have so many implications, none of them ever having been found to be wrong. Lindley's book is about the "meaning" of quantum mechanics, a project that most physicists consider irrelevant at best. I still remember listening to Feynman's Cal Tech lectures on quantum mechanics, where his urged his student not to try to figure what the equation "means." Rather, he urged them just to solve it and get an intuitive "feel" for how it works. Quantum mechanics doesn't "mean" anything. It just is.
This stance is not enough for many people, including virtually all of its creators, who worked in the dizzying years of discovery, 1900 to 1927. Bohr' model did fit some of the specroscopic data on hydrogen very well, but he spent most of his intellectual (as opposed to organizational) energy thereafter ruminating on the principle of complementarity and the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The next generation of physicist could not have cared less. When asked about Bohr's interpretation, Dirac replied that there were no equations, so there was nothing of interest there.
This may be the bast book ever written on the topic, despite its elementary nature. Lindley handle complex topics (e.g., Mach and Carnap) with ease and brevity, yet capturing the essence of the issues. His descriptions are what might be termed "stream of consciousness" physics, because he has the ability to enter and explore highly heterogeneous modalities of consciousness, without ever leaving the physics far out of the picture. After you have read this wonderful book, try Abraham Pais' biographies of Einstein and Bohr. They are more work, but more than worth the effort.
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