The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments (Hardcover)
暫譯: 量子故事:40個時刻的歷史 (精裝版)

Jim Baggott

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商品描述

Utterly beautiful. Profoundly disconcerting. Quantum theory is quite simply the most successful account of the physical universe ever devised. Its concepts underpin much of the twenty-first century technology that we now take for granted. But at the same time it has completely undermined our ability to make sense of the world at its most fundamental level. Niels Bohr claimed that anybody who is not shocked by the theory has not understood it. The American physicist Richard Feynman went further: he claimed that nobody understands it. 

 

The Quantum Story begins in 1900, tracing a century of game-changing science. Popular science writer Jim Baggott first shows how, over the space of three decades, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and others formulated and refined the theory--and opened the floodgates. Indeed, since then, a torrent of ideas has flowed from the world's leading physicists, as they explore and apply the theory's bizarre implications. To take us from the story's beginning to the present day, Baggott organizes his narrative around forty turning-point moments of discovery. Many of these are inextricably bound up with the characters involved--their rivalries and their collaborations, their arguments and, not least, their excitement as they sense that they are redefining what reality means. Through the mix of story and science, we experience their breathtaking leaps of theory and experiment, as they uncover such undreamed of and mind-boggling phenomenon as black holes, multiple universes, quantum entanglement, the Higgs boson, and much more.

 

Brisk, clear, and compelling, The Quantum Story is science writing at its best. A compelling look at the one-hundred-year history of quantum theory, it illuminates the idea as it reveals how generations of physicists have grappled with this monster ever since.

商品描述(中文翻譯)

完全美麗。深刻令人不安。量子理論簡單來說是有史以來對物理宇宙最成功的解釋。它的概念支撐著我們現在視為理所當然的二十一世紀科技。但同時,它也徹底破壞了我們在最基本層面上理解世界的能力。尼爾斯·玻爾(Niels Bohr)聲稱,任何對這一理論不感到震驚的人都沒有理解它。美國物理學家理查德·費曼(Richard Feynman)更進一步:他聲稱沒有人真正理解它。

《量子故事》始於1900年,追溯了一個改變遊戲規則的科學世紀。流行科學作家吉姆·巴戈特(Jim Baggott)首先展示了在三十年的時間裡,愛因斯坦、玻爾、海森堡等人如何制定和完善這一理論,並打開了洪水之門。事實上,自那時以來,來自世界頂尖物理學家的大量想法如潮水般湧出,他們探索並應用這一理論的奇異含義。為了將我們的故事從開始帶到現在,巴戈特圍繞四十個關鍵的發現轉折點組織他的敘述。這些轉折點與參與的角色密不可分——他們的競爭與合作、爭論,以及他們感受到自己正在重新定義現實意義時的興奮。通過故事與科學的交織,我們體驗到他們在理論和實驗上的驚人飛躍,揭示了如黑洞、多重宇宙、量子纏結、希格斯玻色子等令人難以置信的現象。

《量子故事》生動、清晰且引人入勝,是科學寫作的最佳範例。這本書深入探討了量子理論一百年的歷史,照亮了這一理念,揭示了幾代物理學家自那時以來如何與這一巨獸搏鬥。