publication review: Quantum Legacies, by David Kaiser

David Kaiser and the cowl of his new ebook; graphic by way of Donna Coveney, from MIT press release. Donna Coveney I vastly enjoyed David Kaiser’s How the Hippies Saved Physics (right here’s my evaluate from 2011), so once I ran across a mention of this new book with “Quantum” in the title, I instantly sought out a duplicate. This form of aspect is totally crucial to my pursuits. Kaiser is a professor at MIT with a joint appointment in each physics and history of science, and as you might are expecting this collection of essays splits time between those two fields. The publication includes a handful of items concerning Kaiser’s work in physics, mainly a few “cosmological” check of quantum physics, the usage of light from distant quasars as a random quantity generator for a Bell’s Inequality look at various (I talked briefly about this theory in the context of football in 2015). There are additionally a larger variety of items essentially concerning the historical and social context of physics, mainly in the mid-to-late twentieth century. almost all of these had been up to now published (I consider there’s only 1 that doesn’t have a “A edition of this in the past...” word), in the main in non-technical outlets (The London assessment of Books facets prominently, as he had a daily gig with them for ages). The strongest material here charts the alterations in the panorama of physics after World struggle II: the rise and fall of physics enrollments and employment, and the upward push and fall of massive Science initiatives like the (cancelled) Superconducting Supercollider. a few of here is typical from Hippies, but some is new, and all together it paints a really compelling image of how strategic selections on the public coverage level fashioned the manner physicists have gone about learning the universe. i would disagree a little about probably the most detailsâ€" Kaiser’s physics heritage is in particle theory, so he’s more professional-accelerator than i'm, and there’s a thread in the history of quantum that I’ll take problem with in a different submitâ€" however it’s a great story neatly advised. This thread additionally comprises my single favorite piece from the e-book, the usage of a chance collision between issues to unpack the history of particle cosmology. The second wonderful theme in these pieces, as referred to by way of Ash Jogalekar in his evaluate, has to do with physics publishing. once more, a part of here's recycled, however the story of Frijtof Capra’s Tao of Physics is fascinating sufficient that i used to be satisfied to examine it again. The chapter on the writing of the (in)famous Gravitation with the aid of Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler became new to me, notwithstanding, and truly exciting. All in all, here is a very solid work both when it comes to the historical past and the physics discussed in it, and Kaiser is a extremely attractive writer. As you may are expecting from an actual (albeit half-time) historian, the pieces are also appreciably documented with citations of the long-established sources (whatever I appreciate enormously after lots of time spent making an attempt to chase down the sources of colourful anecdotes that look like respectable cloth for my very own publication-in-growth...). in case you’re attracted to (non-technical) writing about physics, and in particular about the historical context of the field, make sure you try it out.