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How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival
The surprising story of eccentric young scientists who stood up to convention-and changed the face of modern physics.
Today, quantum information theory is among the most exciting scientific frontiers, attracting billions of dollars in funding and thousands of talented researchers. But as MIT physicist and historian David Kaiser reveals, this cutting-edge field has a surprisingly psychedelic past. How the Hippies Saved Physics introduces us to a band of freewheeling physicists who defied the imperative to "shut up and calculate" and helped to rejuvenate modern physics.
For physicists, the 1970s were a time of stagnation. Jobs became scarce, and conformity was encouraged, sometimes stifling exploration of the mysteries of the physical world. Dissatisfied, underemployed, and eternally curious, an eccentric group of physicists in Berkeley, California, banded together to throw off the constraints of the physics mainstream and explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the "Fundamental Fysiks Group," they pursued an audacious, speculative approach to physics. They studied quantum entanglement and Bell's Theorem through the lens of Eastern mysticism and psychic mind-reading, discussing the latest research while lounging in hot tubs. Some even dabbled with LSD to enhance their creativity. Unlikely as it may seem, these iconoclasts spun modern physics in a new direction, forcing mainstream physicists to pay attention to the strange but exciting underpinnings of quantum theory.
A lively, entertaining story that illuminates the relationship between creativity and scientific progress, How the Hippies Saved Physics takes us to a time when only the unlikeliest heroes could break the science world out of its rut.
Today, quantum information theory is among the most exciting scientific frontiers, attracting billions of dollars in funding and thousands of talented researchers. But as MIT physicist and historian David Kaiser reveals, this cutting-edge field has a surprisingly psychedelic past. How the Hippies Saved Physics introduces us to a band of freewheeling physicists who defied the imperative to "shut up and calculate" and helped to rejuvenate modern physics.
For physicists, the 1970s were a time of stagnation. Jobs became scarce, and conformity was encouraged, sometimes stifling exploration of the mysteries of the physical world. Dissatisfied, underemployed, and eternally curious, an eccentric group of physicists in Berkeley, California, banded together to throw off the constraints of the physics mainstream and explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the "Fundamental Fysiks Group," they pursued an audacious, speculative approach to physics. They studied quantum entanglement and Bell's Theorem through the lens of Eastern mysticism and psychic mind-reading, discussing the latest research while lounging in hot tubs. Some even dabbled with LSD to enhance their creativity. Unlikely as it may seem, these iconoclasts spun modern physics in a new direction, forcing mainstream physicists to pay attention to the strange but exciting underpinnings of quantum theory.
A lively, entertaining story that illuminates the relationship between creativity and scientific progress, How the Hippies Saved Physics takes us to a time when only the unlikeliest heroes could break the science world out of its rut.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2011
152 people are currently reading
1692 people want to read
About the author
David Kaiser
41 books29 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
David Kaiser is an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society and the Department of Physics. He and his family live in Natick, Massachusetts.
David Kaiser is an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society and the Department of Physics. He and his family live in Natick, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 148 reviews
January 19, 2013
It's got hippies. It's got physics. But 'Saved' is nowhere in sight. It should truthfully be entitled, "How Hippie Physicists Tried Everything They Could Think Of To Prove Paranormal Phenomena Exists And Failed Utterly, But Did Prove One Quantum Phenomena From Their Decades Of Failure, With a Side Story About A Deranged Hippie Murderer"
Ps. Oddly, I 'got' the title before reading the book, because I recall "How the Irish Saved Civilization" came out just after I'd written my Honors thesis on a similar subject. It's probably the most obscure dots I've ever connected.
Ps. Oddly, I 'got' the title before reading the book, because I recall "How the Irish Saved Civilization" came out just after I'd written my Honors thesis on a similar subject. It's probably the most obscure dots I've ever connected.
July 15, 2019
David Kaiser has done a remarkable service by bringing an objective eye to an era that is still mired in controversy. Scholars and people in general take pains to distance themselves from anything tainted by association with drugs or, God forbid, sex, no matter the genuine significance of the music,science or other discipline sincerely investigated. Yes, at times these folks were partying and on occasion were, yes, naked. Let's get over it! This lifestyle is in fact compatible with serious work and accomplishment. When grappling with the bizarre implications of quantum reality an attitude of welcoming all questions and hypotheses for consideration proved important. The fact, as amply researched by Kaiser is that physics departments around the world had discouraged any grappling with the philosophical ramification of quantum theory at all. It was all shut up and calculate.
Physics had lost its connection to the musing inquiries of its 20th century founders such as Einstein and Bohr. The so called hippies of the 1960's and '70's reanimated discussion of what all these calculations meant. Einstein was interested in pulling back the curtain a little bit on God and the structure of the universe. So were the hippies.
Kaiser restores some credit to the members of a group of physicist seekers who gathered in Berkeley (thereby becoming branded as "hippies"). Beyond that Kaiser is able to render in plain English the paths of investigation and results they achieved, the questions they raised, no small achievement. As he accomplishes this he is able to recognize and credit other innovations of the 1970's "hippie" culture that are now accepted as pretty mainstream such as: yoga, organic foods, the "be all you can be" movement and more.
Kaiser makes a good case for the importance of thinkers, in this case physicists to be able (funding needed!) to meet just to kick around ideas that fascinate them. The genesis of the group discussed in this book, the Fundamental Fysiks Group, lay in there being no other format in which they could discuss the ideas that drove them passionately. Now leading companies like Google reserve time for their employees to follow their passions, recognizing that this may well be lucrative. Kaiser draws an important parallel between Eintein's Olympia Academy, a loose group of coffee drinking physics enthusiasts and the Fundamental Fysiks Group. In each case their outsider status freed them to go outside the programmed work of making better bombs, better guidance systems, practical work and float ideas, sometimes wildly impractical and terribly interesting.
Kaiser also realizes the value of a rejected idea. In the process of refuting it, new ideas crystallize that may never have done so without the initial idea put forth. People like Jack Sarfatti and Nick Herbert, two heroes of this book, in their fearlessness in putting out ideas, helped shape many of the practical uses of quantum physics such as emerging quantum computers and existing quantum encryption. Some hidebound physicists still distance themselves from this vanguard group, ostensibly out of fear. This book addresses this wrong and credits the members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group with their findings and their relevant questions.
They let their freak flags fly, long may they wave!
Physics had lost its connection to the musing inquiries of its 20th century founders such as Einstein and Bohr. The so called hippies of the 1960's and '70's reanimated discussion of what all these calculations meant. Einstein was interested in pulling back the curtain a little bit on God and the structure of the universe. So were the hippies.
Kaiser restores some credit to the members of a group of physicist seekers who gathered in Berkeley (thereby becoming branded as "hippies"). Beyond that Kaiser is able to render in plain English the paths of investigation and results they achieved, the questions they raised, no small achievement. As he accomplishes this he is able to recognize and credit other innovations of the 1970's "hippie" culture that are now accepted as pretty mainstream such as: yoga, organic foods, the "be all you can be" movement and more.
Kaiser makes a good case for the importance of thinkers, in this case physicists to be able (funding needed!) to meet just to kick around ideas that fascinate them. The genesis of the group discussed in this book, the Fundamental Fysiks Group, lay in there being no other format in which they could discuss the ideas that drove them passionately. Now leading companies like Google reserve time for their employees to follow their passions, recognizing that this may well be lucrative. Kaiser draws an important parallel between Eintein's Olympia Academy, a loose group of coffee drinking physics enthusiasts and the Fundamental Fysiks Group. In each case their outsider status freed them to go outside the programmed work of making better bombs, better guidance systems, practical work and float ideas, sometimes wildly impractical and terribly interesting.
Kaiser also realizes the value of a rejected idea. In the process of refuting it, new ideas crystallize that may never have done so without the initial idea put forth. People like Jack Sarfatti and Nick Herbert, two heroes of this book, in their fearlessness in putting out ideas, helped shape many of the practical uses of quantum physics such as emerging quantum computers and existing quantum encryption. Some hidebound physicists still distance themselves from this vanguard group, ostensibly out of fear. This book addresses this wrong and credits the members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group with their findings and their relevant questions.
They let their freak flags fly, long may they wave!
August 19, 2011
This book starts out overstated from the title itself, and proceeds to inflate the importance of a particular social movement in the history of modern physics. Kaiser is aware of this, at least, but it doesn't stop him from vastly over-reaching. Add to that the tedium and endless repetition of information (how many times does he think characters need to be introduced?) and what would be an insightful magazine article becomes a poor book. It was also a shame to see the almost unquestioning acceptance of the supposed "psychic" powers of professional magicians by Uri Geller. It also lacks a certain coherence; the narrative bounces back and forth through time without giving the reader any sense of how it fits together, and characters come and go without leaving any real impression. This book could have used another couple passes through the editorial machine.
December 31, 2011
"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." JBS Haldane's words never ring so true as when the quantum world is discussed. At this subatomic level, all our intuitions about space, time, causality, even what a thing is, go out the window. In their place we have equations, and by dint of difficult calculation we can make predictions about how this miniscule world works. But there's no use trying to understand it, to form a mental picture, to ask what it means.
At least, that was the thinking of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The originators of quantum theory, those geniuses of the 30s like Heisenberg, Einstein, Bohr, they wondered what the fuck it all meant. They grappled with meaning. But once everyone got focused on gadgets, on bombs and atomic drives, and physics enrollments boomed because science funding was up, students were discouraged from such "philosophy". Calculations, difficult and frequent, were how quantum physics was done in those times.
But some of the most interesting and promising fruits of quantum physics, quantum cryptography and quantum entanglement, came about through just such musings. This book traces the early seeds of those fields, the difficulty the authors had in getting published, and the group of out-there Berkeley physicists and physics groupies who glommed onto the research, added to it, spread it around, and popularised it. We meet a murderer, the men who talk to goats, a millionaire self-help guru, even Uri Geller, and see the roles each played in helping a crazy idea become consensus physics mainstream.
Because the book focuses on just one aspect of quantum physics, the weirdness isn't overwhelming. I admit to eye-glazing in a few patches, but not very many and not the first introductory explanations. In fact, my interest in that weirdness is renewed. I'm going to be at a conference with a philosophical quantum physicist in February, and I look forward to picking his brains.
Where Kaiser's story falls down, though, is that it is too true to reality: it's dissipated, there's no one central character, and only a few of the scientists are particularly likable. The 70s hippy rogues are perhaps iconic figures to boomers who lived through those times, but this Gen Xer remains utterly cold to their dingbat fantasies. I'll add "Dancing Wu Li Masters" to my reading list but I'm braced for wingnuttiness.
The nuttiness, though, is part of the best angle in "How the Hippies Saved Physics": the question of distinguishing between "real science" and "pseudoscience". This question of "demarcation" is a small part of the book, but that's what captured my imagination. It's so relevant today, with the big knuckleups around climate science, that I want to read more about it. Science is obviously a social enterprise, conducted by flawed and emotional human beings subject to trends and groupthink like the rest of us (this book makes that abundantly clear). As always, one good book leads to many more ...
At least, that was the thinking of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The originators of quantum theory, those geniuses of the 30s like Heisenberg, Einstein, Bohr, they wondered what the fuck it all meant. They grappled with meaning. But once everyone got focused on gadgets, on bombs and atomic drives, and physics enrollments boomed because science funding was up, students were discouraged from such "philosophy". Calculations, difficult and frequent, were how quantum physics was done in those times.
But some of the most interesting and promising fruits of quantum physics, quantum cryptography and quantum entanglement, came about through just such musings. This book traces the early seeds of those fields, the difficulty the authors had in getting published, and the group of out-there Berkeley physicists and physics groupies who glommed onto the research, added to it, spread it around, and popularised it. We meet a murderer, the men who talk to goats, a millionaire self-help guru, even Uri Geller, and see the roles each played in helping a crazy idea become consensus physics mainstream.
Because the book focuses on just one aspect of quantum physics, the weirdness isn't overwhelming. I admit to eye-glazing in a few patches, but not very many and not the first introductory explanations. In fact, my interest in that weirdness is renewed. I'm going to be at a conference with a philosophical quantum physicist in February, and I look forward to picking his brains.
Where Kaiser's story falls down, though, is that it is too true to reality: it's dissipated, there's no one central character, and only a few of the scientists are particularly likable. The 70s hippy rogues are perhaps iconic figures to boomers who lived through those times, but this Gen Xer remains utterly cold to their dingbat fantasies. I'll add "Dancing Wu Li Masters" to my reading list but I'm braced for wingnuttiness.
The nuttiness, though, is part of the best angle in "How the Hippies Saved Physics": the question of distinguishing between "real science" and "pseudoscience". This question of "demarcation" is a small part of the book, but that's what captured my imagination. It's so relevant today, with the big knuckleups around climate science, that I want to read more about it. Science is obviously a social enterprise, conducted by flawed and emotional human beings subject to trends and groupthink like the rest of us (this book makes that abundantly clear). As always, one good book leads to many more ...
January 5, 2015
"How the Hippies Saved Physics" took me back to my undergraduate days, by first two courses in Quantum Mechanics. Like the protagonists of Kaiser's book, I wanted to understand quantum mechanics. But the profs had their line that always closed off any inquiry ---"Shut up and calculate!" The maths works, the theory works --- why are you wasting your time in trying to figure out the Schrodinger wave function, wave particle duality, which slit an electron passes through in Young's double-slit experiment? An exasperated prof finally told me, "Then why are you unhappy?" as if the problem was with ME instead of the physics. A physics that no one really understood. Physicists were happy to "shut up and calculate". And so I switched majors and took up Astronomy. At least astronomers struck me as honest about what they didn't understand.
And so I was thrilled to find a group of physicists who were also not content to "shut up and calculate". Dissatisfied with the current climate in physics, they set out to figure things out. Their searches took them into the heart of "non-local" effects, a study of consciousness and yes --- paranormal phenomena. Sometimes I wonder whether the "shut up and calculate" mantra, adopted by most physicists is their way of keeping their distance from those fringe subjects that make them uncomfortable.Which is why an inordinate amount of effort is spent in debunking them.
No, the Hippies didn't save physics. That claim is an exaggeration. However their efforts led them into new territory in understanding the nature of non-local effects, subtle features of the quantum theory that prevent all proposed forms of super-luminal communication. The role of consciousness in quantum effects and its possible connection to non-local effects remains a promising avenue for future research. Interestingly, recent experiments by Dean Radin suggest that the mind can influence the behavior of photons.We can't even use paranormal abilities to nail down the position of a photon!
And so I was thrilled to find a group of physicists who were also not content to "shut up and calculate". Dissatisfied with the current climate in physics, they set out to figure things out. Their searches took them into the heart of "non-local" effects, a study of consciousness and yes --- paranormal phenomena. Sometimes I wonder whether the "shut up and calculate" mantra, adopted by most physicists is their way of keeping their distance from those fringe subjects that make them uncomfortable.Which is why an inordinate amount of effort is spent in debunking them.
No, the Hippies didn't save physics. That claim is an exaggeration. However their efforts led them into new territory in understanding the nature of non-local effects, subtle features of the quantum theory that prevent all proposed forms of super-luminal communication. The role of consciousness in quantum effects and its possible connection to non-local effects remains a promising avenue for future research. Interestingly, recent experiments by Dean Radin suggest that the mind can influence the behavior of photons.We can't even use paranormal abilities to nail down the position of a photon!
August 30, 2015
One of the greatest values of this book is the richness of the bibliography. I will be reading from that list for years to come.
The hippies in question were doing a lot of interesting experimentation, and expanding on ideas that cold war physics had left behind in favor of developing weapons. They may not have "saved" physics, per se, but they did bring the romance back to it.
It was interesting to learn that a number of the Essalen group went on to be involved in IONS. The research being done there ties mind, body, spirit, and science together in approachable ways. Another of the physicists in the book went on to develop HeartMath technology, which is one of the best modern biofeedback systems around. Our current banking technology also came from people in this group.
I know a retired physicist, trained following WWII, who will not spend one conversation exploring the idea of quanta because in his case, as in so many others, he was taught to think inside the box. I consider the lack of imagination they instilled in him to have robbed him of a world we are beginning to understand.
You will see physics in this book, and a history of physics that you will most likely have seen before. In that way the book is a primer.
I recommend this book for anyone with an interest in quantam mechanics because the history of that field is incomplete without it.
The hippies in question were doing a lot of interesting experimentation, and expanding on ideas that cold war physics had left behind in favor of developing weapons. They may not have "saved" physics, per se, but they did bring the romance back to it.
It was interesting to learn that a number of the Essalen group went on to be involved in IONS. The research being done there ties mind, body, spirit, and science together in approachable ways. Another of the physicists in the book went on to develop HeartMath technology, which is one of the best modern biofeedback systems around. Our current banking technology also came from people in this group.
I know a retired physicist, trained following WWII, who will not spend one conversation exploring the idea of quanta because in his case, as in so many others, he was taught to think inside the box. I consider the lack of imagination they instilled in him to have robbed him of a world we are beginning to understand.
You will see physics in this book, and a history of physics that you will most likely have seen before. In that way the book is a primer.
I recommend this book for anyone with an interest in quantam mechanics because the history of that field is incomplete without it.
November 24, 2013
Once again, an opportunity to explain how psychedelics actually influenced decision-making and experimental creativity dashed on the rocks of the feel-good aesthetics of Esalen Institute and est. Interesting in many respects, since it deals (a small bit) with the eminence grise of all this, Ira Einhorn (aka, "The Unicorn'), the self-styled and self-promoting feel-good Philadelphia "hippie guru-leader" who murdered his girlfriend, but other than that, reading about some of these people just begs the question: yes, you took acid, but please tell me the particulars of how it helped you create this solution to this theorem, (etc)! We need more accurate and precise reporting than we do another telling of history from a generalized perception. Even if this is a "specialty topic"- freaks who dug physics and how they changed the modern world to think on Their Terms. For every three-paragraph summation of someone's "mystical experience" I have the feeling that each one could perhaps make up their own book, all on its own. Disappointing overall, but informative, should you wish to go there.
November 27, 2024
I agree that the introduction of new people felt dizzying and also the experiments went totally over my head. There were maybe some other things that could have been talked about more but this book at least presents a solid starting point with lists of people to research and their studies and books to read and theories to understand. So sad that in their desperation for the pursuit of science and knowledge that they got (quantum lol) entangled with the CIA as well…… it tinges their and innocent, eager curiosity and search for truth with darkness
November 26, 2011
Am I convinced hippies saved physics? Not a chance.
I was surprised by the efforts some put into paranormal research. It seems like bunk to me, but others don't believe so. It all stems from the bizarre ability to transport information in ways that aren't easily explained. Fascinating. Bizarre. Is there an answer?
Quantum mechanics is counter intuitive. Here's a thoughtful analogy. Take twins. Put one in a restaurant in Europe and the other in one in Canada. Twin A is offered a choice of fish or steak. A chooses fish. B is offered the same choice and chooses steak. In fact, B will always choose steak if A choses fish. If A chose steak, B will always choose fish. It's easy to explain if it's planned or arranged or there's some type of communication between the two, but none of those arrangements exist. B will always choose the opposite of what A chose. It happens. It's bizarre. It's quantum mechanics.
I was surprised by the efforts some put into paranormal research. It seems like bunk to me, but others don't believe so. It all stems from the bizarre ability to transport information in ways that aren't easily explained. Fascinating. Bizarre. Is there an answer?
Quantum mechanics is counter intuitive. Here's a thoughtful analogy. Take twins. Put one in a restaurant in Europe and the other in one in Canada. Twin A is offered a choice of fish or steak. A chooses fish. B is offered the same choice and chooses steak. In fact, B will always choose steak if A choses fish. If A chose steak, B will always choose fish. It's easy to explain if it's planned or arranged or there's some type of communication between the two, but none of those arrangements exist. B will always choose the opposite of what A chose. It happens. It's bizarre. It's quantum mechanics.
November 28, 2017
It upsets me to rate this book so low since I've had the pleasure of attending multiple lectures by Prof. Kaiser, who is extremely engaging and entertaining in person. His writings on how the pedagogy of physics changed as the result of war was some of the most memorable and mind blowing concepts I had to read for class.
However, this book was plain boring. The first few chapters introducing history was great, similar to his insightful lectures. But as soon as he starts on the Fundamental Fysics Group, the book degrades into a dizzying cast of characters that made the story -- if there was one -- impossible to follow. The stories drifted from concept to concept, place to place, person to person, with "saving physics" easily forgotten as a theme. For a book that spanned so many characters, so many physics concepts, and such a long time period, the chapters seriously needed some serious editing and focus (see Poisoner's Handbook, which made this crazy task sane).
However, this book was plain boring. The first few chapters introducing history was great, similar to his insightful lectures. But as soon as he starts on the Fundamental Fysics Group, the book degrades into a dizzying cast of characters that made the story -- if there was one -- impossible to follow. The stories drifted from concept to concept, place to place, person to person, with "saving physics" easily forgotten as a theme. For a book that spanned so many characters, so many physics concepts, and such a long time period, the chapters seriously needed some serious editing and focus (see Poisoner's Handbook, which made this crazy task sane).
September 22, 2016
In looking for something that was an overdrive audiobook that was available to be listened to on my phone while doing tasks, I came across this.
It is clear I need to look at the finer definitions of entanglement , spooky action at a distance , bell's theorem , nonlocality, hidden variables .
This is more a fun history of science book that a physics book. I thought it was interesting and balanced story about the 70s and 80s world of physics.
It is clear I need to look at the finer definitions of entanglement , spooky action at a distance , bell's theorem , nonlocality, hidden variables .
This is more a fun history of science book that a physics book. I thought it was interesting and balanced story about the 70s and 80s world of physics.
December 8, 2011
I have to be honest here, the approach taken by the author is not one I was totally comfortable with. He expresses regret that physics moved from requiring students to write philosophical essays about the interpretation of quantum theory to concentrating on the physics and maths. I have to say this doesn't strike me as a problem. Similarly he is very enthusiastic, working very hard to find something good scientifically coming out of the counter culture. Again I don't think this should be an end in itself. It's interesting if true, but not something you should shape history to try to prove.
Much of the book is concerned with two things: quantum entanglement, and an obscure group of US scientists who called themselves the 'Fundamental Fysics group.' I'm sorry, but every time I saw that 'Fysics' it made me cringe and want to dunk someone's head in a toilet and flush it. That kind of spelling is just about acceptable if you are selling doughnuts, but not if you want to be taken seriously.
Having written a book about quantum entanglement (The God Effect, which I'm delighted to see was in the author's bibliography) I was interested to learn more about this group's contribution. I think it's fair to say, in the words of the great Paul Daniels it was 'not a lot.' But, to be fair, some of it was quite entertaining, if only in a kind of 'weren't those hippy types funny' way. In fact by far the most interesting and absorbing part of the book (and it is a significant part) is the story of the lifestyles and strange goings on from nude discussion groups to murder.
The author also gives us quite a lot about entanglement, especially on the Bell inequality which was used to demonstrate that entangled particles really do seem to act non-locally, instantly communicating at a distance. Mostly this is fine, and provided significantly more details than many popular science accounts. This is important physics and deserves to be well covered. The only slight disappointment is a misunderstanding of the original EPR paper that started the whole quantum entanglement business.
This paper deals with two entangled particles, looking at their position and momentum. A lot of people misinterpreted it, thinking because it refers to these two properties that it's about violating Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, suggesting it's possible to measure both accurately and simultaneously (something the uncertainty principle forbids). David Kaiser falls into this trap. But Einstein (the E of EPR) was dismissive of this idea. He said of the use of both position and momentum 'Ist mir Wurst!' (literally 'it's sausage to me'), meaning 'I couldn't care less.' The intention was to show you could do this with position or momentum - there is no suggestion in the paper that you would attempt to do both simultaneously and undermine uncertainty.
In the end, Kaiser doesn't make a great case for the Fysics (ugh) group contributing anything significant to our knowledge of physics - they're always on the fringe. He certainly doesn't justify the book's title as anything other than very cheeky hyperbole. But it is a mildly entertaining oddity in the history of science - and as this can be a little dull sometimes, it's not at all a bad thing that it has been covered.
This review was originally published on www.popularscience.co.uk - reproduced with permission
Much of the book is concerned with two things: quantum entanglement, and an obscure group of US scientists who called themselves the 'Fundamental Fysics group.' I'm sorry, but every time I saw that 'Fysics' it made me cringe and want to dunk someone's head in a toilet and flush it. That kind of spelling is just about acceptable if you are selling doughnuts, but not if you want to be taken seriously.
Having written a book about quantum entanglement (The God Effect, which I'm delighted to see was in the author's bibliography) I was interested to learn more about this group's contribution. I think it's fair to say, in the words of the great Paul Daniels it was 'not a lot.' But, to be fair, some of it was quite entertaining, if only in a kind of 'weren't those hippy types funny' way. In fact by far the most interesting and absorbing part of the book (and it is a significant part) is the story of the lifestyles and strange goings on from nude discussion groups to murder.
The author also gives us quite a lot about entanglement, especially on the Bell inequality which was used to demonstrate that entangled particles really do seem to act non-locally, instantly communicating at a distance. Mostly this is fine, and provided significantly more details than many popular science accounts. This is important physics and deserves to be well covered. The only slight disappointment is a misunderstanding of the original EPR paper that started the whole quantum entanglement business.
This paper deals with two entangled particles, looking at their position and momentum. A lot of people misinterpreted it, thinking because it refers to these two properties that it's about violating Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, suggesting it's possible to measure both accurately and simultaneously (something the uncertainty principle forbids). David Kaiser falls into this trap. But Einstein (the E of EPR) was dismissive of this idea. He said of the use of both position and momentum 'Ist mir Wurst!' (literally 'it's sausage to me'), meaning 'I couldn't care less.' The intention was to show you could do this with position or momentum - there is no suggestion in the paper that you would attempt to do both simultaneously and undermine uncertainty.
In the end, Kaiser doesn't make a great case for the Fysics (ugh) group contributing anything significant to our knowledge of physics - they're always on the fringe. He certainly doesn't justify the book's title as anything other than very cheeky hyperbole. But it is a mildly entertaining oddity in the history of science - and as this can be a little dull sometimes, it's not at all a bad thing that it has been covered.
This review was originally published on www.popularscience.co.uk - reproduced with permission
October 6, 2011
I gave up and returned this book to the library without finishing it. I did skip through and could see no evidence that this group "saved" physics. The author spent way too much ink on est and Uri Geller. Maybe the book is better if you plow through it without skipping around, but I doubt it.
August 20, 2020
A fascinating foray into the history of quantum mechanics, with the focus on the 1970s in the US, especially around San Francisco and Berkeley, where a countercultural and informal Fundamental Fysiks Group (FFG) revived the interest in the quantum theory, considered disreputable by the Cold War military-industrial applied physics consensus. In some ways mimicking the Olympus Group of the original physicists (Einstein, Bohr, etc), at least in their openness to new ideas, if not in the scale of their achievement, this group, taking advantage of the freewheeling environment of the post-Sixties era, including the New Age perspective, explored the potential consequences and implications of quantum non-locality and entanglement, which ultimately helped usher in quantum computing and quantum information science, with applications in cryptography, communications and beyond.
A well-researched and sourced account, easy to follow and quite gripping in its recounting of the postwar developments in particle physics. The intersection of western science and eastern mysticism, explored by many members of the FFG, many of whom became full-time writers, ecology activists, as well as remained practicing physicists, has transformed the way we can think about and see our lives, our consciousness, our reality. Humanity is still catching up with all the profound implications of the as yet little understood quantum perspective.
Read along with Zukav’s “The Dancing Wu Ali Masters (1979) or Fritjof Capra’s “Tao of Physics” (1975), this book opens a window on an exceptional period in the history of modern science.
A well-researched and sourced account, easy to follow and quite gripping in its recounting of the postwar developments in particle physics. The intersection of western science and eastern mysticism, explored by many members of the FFG, many of whom became full-time writers, ecology activists, as well as remained practicing physicists, has transformed the way we can think about and see our lives, our consciousness, our reality. Humanity is still catching up with all the profound implications of the as yet little understood quantum perspective.
Read along with Zukav’s “The Dancing Wu Ali Masters (1979) or Fritjof Capra’s “Tao of Physics” (1975), this book opens a window on an exceptional period in the history of modern science.
January 6, 2025
The premise of the book is based on the provocation that the hippies "saved" physics, which the author caveats in the beginning chapter. Overall a "fun facts to know and tell at parties" kind of book - I'm reading it whilst doing a phd on law/governance efforts surrounding quantum tech but still entertaining, outrageous fly-on-the-wall moments. The author knows the field of quantum on both a technical and sociological level, technical content was digestible, the bibliography/references are rich, so very useful for anyone interested in the history/politics of quantum physics. The recurring theme of how scientific inquiry is contingent on social networks and the funding derived from certain actors in such networks (sometimes from dubious origins and eccentric personalities and institutions) was illustrated rather well and quite engaging to read about. I'm interested in general discussions on what quantum theory/quantum mechanics really means, so this book provided plenty of physicists quotes and ponderings on the topic. It's by no means a perfectly written book, so many characters get re-introduced multiple times (gets annoying), sometimes the chronology was a bit off but regardless I still got a lot of out it.
August 3, 2019
There was a lot of interesting information in this book but it was also very dull despite being well read. There was an assumption that the listener knew at least the basics about physics and I am not sure that I did. This book is focused specifically on quantum physics. For most of us, we've heard the term, we know about Schrodinger's cat even if we really don't understand it, and there are a few names that are practically household names. There is a lot of sexy - anyone who thinks physicists are boring never lived through the counter culture years with hippies, communes, est seminars, national headline murderers - Ira Einhorn still serving life in prison. But it was difficult to put the theoretical physics into relatable applications. When they brought up things like encrypted messaging and electronic data transfer I momentarily got it, but in many ways it was just a series of names repeated again and again. If you are into physics you will probably enjoy this history lesson which begins prior to WWII and ends in 2010 but if you are not, these 12 hours are long ones.
November 18, 2019
Well, the hippies didn't save physics, though Kaiser's pretty much aware of that. What they did was put a spotlight on the idea of quantum entanglement at a time when the academic and governmental politics of physics had shifted the attention away from philosophy (which was of deep interest to the quantum pioneers like Heisenberg and Bohr and quantum skeptic Einsten) toward engineering-friendly calculation. And that probably would have reemerged from another vector anyway.
Having said that, it's a fun book centered on Irish physicist John Bell's mid-1960s work and the entertainingly crazy and serious Fundamental Fysics Group that mixed its exploration of quantum philosophy with all sorts of New Age stuff at and around the Esalen Institute.
Fun read, not particularly illuminating.
Having said that, it's a fun book centered on Irish physicist John Bell's mid-1960s work and the entertainingly crazy and serious Fundamental Fysics Group that mixed its exploration of quantum philosophy with all sorts of New Age stuff at and around the Esalen Institute.
Fun read, not particularly illuminating.
December 23, 2021
I listened to the unabridged 12-hour audio version of this title (read by Sean Runnette, Blackstone Audio, 2011).
In the 1970s, funding for physics went on a downward spiral. Large numbers of graduates had to compete for scarce employment opportunities, so students began shunning the field. Then, a quirky band of underemployed physicists in Berkeley, California, decided on a freewheeling approach to physics research, discussing ideas while sitting in hot tubs, high on drugs, or in secret locations, away from the eyes and ears of their skeptical, establishment mentors, mixing in doses of philosophy, psychic mind-reading, and Eastern mysticism.
Quantum physics is hailed as a towering achievement of humankind, yet the path to its monumental discoveries wasn't well-defined or smooth. Bell's Theorem (dispelling the belief that quantum physics is incomplete and thus requires consideration of physical properties outside the theory, the so-called "hidden variables," to make accurate predictions) is a case in point. It took years before John Stewart Bell's 1964 paper was even cited and many more years before skeptics could be brought to accept it.
Kaiser, an MIT physicist and historian of science, takes us on a tour of the development of quantum physics, from its inception in the 1920s to nearly a century later. Today, the exotic and endangered quantum physics of the 1970s is but a distant memory, having produced the lucrative quantum information theory, hyped to be our ticket out of computationally-tough problems and a cure for the end of exponential hardware performance growth.
Particularly intriguing for me was Kaiser's discussion of how entanglement or "spooky action at a distance" predicted by Bell's Theorem was taken by some to mean that mind-reading and other notions of parapsychology made sense. The conclusion that human mind and consciousness were quantum-mechanical in nature followed. Similarly, attempts were made to describe the observer effect in terms of the involvement of human consciousness in any measurement.
The book is a masterful piece of science-history writing, weaving just the right amount of science, alongside human-interest stories that provided the context for scientific advances in quantum physics. In writing the book, Kaiser set out to untangle the counter-intuitive aspects of quantum physics and how the "shut up and compute" attitude of its early days has been replaced by a quest for impact and meaning, while also providing a window into the lives of physicists, as they worked on scientific problems in a turbulent world of culture clashes and Vietnam War.
Here is an interesting interview with the author as part of the "Voices of the Manhattan Project" series:
https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.or...
In the 1970s, funding for physics went on a downward spiral. Large numbers of graduates had to compete for scarce employment opportunities, so students began shunning the field. Then, a quirky band of underemployed physicists in Berkeley, California, decided on a freewheeling approach to physics research, discussing ideas while sitting in hot tubs, high on drugs, or in secret locations, away from the eyes and ears of their skeptical, establishment mentors, mixing in doses of philosophy, psychic mind-reading, and Eastern mysticism.
Quantum physics is hailed as a towering achievement of humankind, yet the path to its monumental discoveries wasn't well-defined or smooth. Bell's Theorem (dispelling the belief that quantum physics is incomplete and thus requires consideration of physical properties outside the theory, the so-called "hidden variables," to make accurate predictions) is a case in point. It took years before John Stewart Bell's 1964 paper was even cited and many more years before skeptics could be brought to accept it.
Kaiser, an MIT physicist and historian of science, takes us on a tour of the development of quantum physics, from its inception in the 1920s to nearly a century later. Today, the exotic and endangered quantum physics of the 1970s is but a distant memory, having produced the lucrative quantum information theory, hyped to be our ticket out of computationally-tough problems and a cure for the end of exponential hardware performance growth.
Particularly intriguing for me was Kaiser's discussion of how entanglement or "spooky action at a distance" predicted by Bell's Theorem was taken by some to mean that mind-reading and other notions of parapsychology made sense. The conclusion that human mind and consciousness were quantum-mechanical in nature followed. Similarly, attempts were made to describe the observer effect in terms of the involvement of human consciousness in any measurement.
The book is a masterful piece of science-history writing, weaving just the right amount of science, alongside human-interest stories that provided the context for scientific advances in quantum physics. In writing the book, Kaiser set out to untangle the counter-intuitive aspects of quantum physics and how the "shut up and compute" attitude of its early days has been replaced by a quest for impact and meaning, while also providing a window into the lives of physicists, as they worked on scientific problems in a turbulent world of culture clashes and Vietnam War.
Here is an interesting interview with the author as part of the "Voices of the Manhattan Project" series:
https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.or...
October 29, 2015
In a word, ug.
Honestly, I was disappointed with the lack of physics. Aside from a solid explanation of the two slit experiment and Bell’s Theorem (which is used to assert quantum nonlocality), and the refutation of cloning quantum states there is very little here. This is not a book about physics, but a book about how the nature of philosophical questions about physics was preserved by the Fundamental Fysics Group (FFG), a group of disaffected from the mainstream physicists who tried their damnedest to use Bell’s Theorem as a basis for parapsychology, getting the CIA, DIA, and Erhard to foot the bill.
While I regard philosophical questions about physics to be of fundamental importance, but with all the book’s emphasis on Uri Geller’s “mental spoon bending” (were these people so easily duped?), EST seminars with LSD and naked coeds to attract physicists like Feynmann, and the lurid story of Ira Einhorn, who murdered his girlfriend, kept her body in an apartment for a year, and then - after posting bail - spent 20 years on the lam, blaming the CIA and FBI for framing him (he was later convicted with overwhelming evidence), you have to wonder whether this group was really the *best* philosophical unit for saving physics. Especially when we consider the advances of other physics approaches (such as quantum chromodynamics which led to String Theory) and David Bohm’s quantum mind. Bohm, incidentally, was one of the heroes of the FFG who fled America during Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt, but he did not rely on FFG as much as they relied on him for actual physics. It really looks like the FFG was a bunch of partying nerds with scientific and psi background that didn’t really do much physics, being far more obsessed with ESP and telekinesis. They also come off (to me at any rate in 2015) as naïve, willing to be led by anyone who waives a shiny object in front of them (especially if it is gold).
All of this would be fine, though, if there was nothing destructive about groups like the FFG, but there is an opportunity cost when time, energy, and money are spent on non-serious science. The same resources spent on better elaborated approaches might actually yield a better understanding of consciousness and physics. It is axiomatic that there is a link between the two, but real science has to come into play, and while all data is crucial (psychedelics certainly does show that matter can affect mind), there was more going on in the mainstream than the author attests. I think that was the part of the book that was most erroneous, the idea that we needed the FFG to save physics. Physics cannot be destroyed by the government’s obsession with military weapons nor can it be saved by renegade physicists. It is above both, because important questions about the nature of the world and how it applies to the mind are eternal.
Ok, one more thing that absolutely bugged me was the assumption that inviting a group of people together implies that they all form some type of community. This is a constant them of the book: A goes to visit B who works with C who studied with D who went to a party with E, so A and E are linked. No. Einstein and Bohr argued with each other and had a long correspondence - that was real. That one of Geller’s handlers meets a physicist in a forum somewhere does not imply that the FFG is a universal mainstream non-fringe group. People can associate with each other and just be polite. I’ve been to parties before with people that are convinced in divine intervention on their behalf. Does that mean I agree? I’ve learned enough not to argue with everyone with whom I disagree, and I afford everyone else the same credit.
I lost patience a lot (especially in the long-winded exposés about Zukav’s “Dancing With the Wu-Li Masters” and Capra’s “Tao of Physics”). These were as long as many book reviews on Goodreads. I’ve read both books and while I recognize that especially “Tao of Physics” encouraged many people to be interested in the philosophical questions of physics, neither book is a good physics book. Zukav’s pun about Wu-Li (where he changes the emphasis on Li to connote different interpretations of Wu-Li) shows a fundamental ignorance that in Mandarin emphasis creates fundamentally different words (that’s the point) and not variations of the same. It really seemed when I read it like typical Western arrogance. Also there is no physics (sorry, I said that).
At the same time, I actually got what I wanted from this book, which was a fundamental understanding of Berkeley’s fringe physics movement. I really feel like I understand their goals (which were not physics but proving parapsychology to be true using physics). It will help me as background information in a story I’m writing, so 2 STARS. I am going to read Penrose’s book about quantum consciousness next and see if it helps get a better actual understanding of the nature of the mind through the lens of physics.
Honestly, I was disappointed with the lack of physics. Aside from a solid explanation of the two slit experiment and Bell’s Theorem (which is used to assert quantum nonlocality), and the refutation of cloning quantum states there is very little here. This is not a book about physics, but a book about how the nature of philosophical questions about physics was preserved by the Fundamental Fysics Group (FFG), a group of disaffected from the mainstream physicists who tried their damnedest to use Bell’s Theorem as a basis for parapsychology, getting the CIA, DIA, and Erhard to foot the bill.
While I regard philosophical questions about physics to be of fundamental importance, but with all the book’s emphasis on Uri Geller’s “mental spoon bending” (were these people so easily duped?), EST seminars with LSD and naked coeds to attract physicists like Feynmann, and the lurid story of Ira Einhorn, who murdered his girlfriend, kept her body in an apartment for a year, and then - after posting bail - spent 20 years on the lam, blaming the CIA and FBI for framing him (he was later convicted with overwhelming evidence), you have to wonder whether this group was really the *best* philosophical unit for saving physics. Especially when we consider the advances of other physics approaches (such as quantum chromodynamics which led to String Theory) and David Bohm’s quantum mind. Bohm, incidentally, was one of the heroes of the FFG who fled America during Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt, but he did not rely on FFG as much as they relied on him for actual physics. It really looks like the FFG was a bunch of partying nerds with scientific and psi background that didn’t really do much physics, being far more obsessed with ESP and telekinesis. They also come off (to me at any rate in 2015) as naïve, willing to be led by anyone who waives a shiny object in front of them (especially if it is gold).
All of this would be fine, though, if there was nothing destructive about groups like the FFG, but there is an opportunity cost when time, energy, and money are spent on non-serious science. The same resources spent on better elaborated approaches might actually yield a better understanding of consciousness and physics. It is axiomatic that there is a link between the two, but real science has to come into play, and while all data is crucial (psychedelics certainly does show that matter can affect mind), there was more going on in the mainstream than the author attests. I think that was the part of the book that was most erroneous, the idea that we needed the FFG to save physics. Physics cannot be destroyed by the government’s obsession with military weapons nor can it be saved by renegade physicists. It is above both, because important questions about the nature of the world and how it applies to the mind are eternal.
Ok, one more thing that absolutely bugged me was the assumption that inviting a group of people together implies that they all form some type of community. This is a constant them of the book: A goes to visit B who works with C who studied with D who went to a party with E, so A and E are linked. No. Einstein and Bohr argued with each other and had a long correspondence - that was real. That one of Geller’s handlers meets a physicist in a forum somewhere does not imply that the FFG is a universal mainstream non-fringe group. People can associate with each other and just be polite. I’ve been to parties before with people that are convinced in divine intervention on their behalf. Does that mean I agree? I’ve learned enough not to argue with everyone with whom I disagree, and I afford everyone else the same credit.
I lost patience a lot (especially in the long-winded exposés about Zukav’s “Dancing With the Wu-Li Masters” and Capra’s “Tao of Physics”). These were as long as many book reviews on Goodreads. I’ve read both books and while I recognize that especially “Tao of Physics” encouraged many people to be interested in the philosophical questions of physics, neither book is a good physics book. Zukav’s pun about Wu-Li (where he changes the emphasis on Li to connote different interpretations of Wu-Li) shows a fundamental ignorance that in Mandarin emphasis creates fundamentally different words (that’s the point) and not variations of the same. It really seemed when I read it like typical Western arrogance. Also there is no physics (sorry, I said that).
At the same time, I actually got what I wanted from this book, which was a fundamental understanding of Berkeley’s fringe physics movement. I really feel like I understand their goals (which were not physics but proving parapsychology to be true using physics). It will help me as background information in a story I’m writing, so 2 STARS. I am going to read Penrose’s book about quantum consciousness next and see if it helps get a better actual understanding of the nature of the mind through the lens of physics.
November 11, 2019
Catchy title. Moderately interesting information . Audiobook was dull performance.
January 4, 2020
It goes on about baloney like equating the "paranormal" (esp and mentally bending forks) with quantum mechanics' entanglement of distant particles. It's got some gnarly delving into quantum mechanics. What it doen't have is much about hippies saving physics. intermittently absorbing but not a coherent whole.
November 29, 2022
Some segments of this were jaw-dropping. Very entertaining commute listen. Learned so much about what was happening in the 1970s, didn't expect to learn so much about why so many people in the New Age movement keep talking about the quantum world.
July 31, 2011
How the Hippies Saved Physics is a fantastically kooky and zany history of the fringes of physics research in the 1960s and 1970s. The premise is certainly intriguing. Kaiser argues that the Second World War and the Cold War had relegated physics in America to number crunching and practical applications of theory (mainly in the defense industry) and that all previous notions of fundamental questions all but dried up. The timing couldn't have been less fortunate, as the war followed close on the heels of the heady days of the major physical discoveries that led to the formulation of quantum mechanics as a whole by luminaries such as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg and Schrodinger in the 1920s and 1930s. This was a time when great philosophical questions concerning the nature of reality should have been asked, but the academic institutions of American were mainly concerned with churning out PhDs to compete with the Soviets. In short, if you weren't doing something practical in physics like producing better nuclear weapons or radar invisible materials, you weren't doing real physics. According to Kaiser, a select group of Hippy physicists centered in Berkeley called the Fundamental Fysiks Group provided a venue for physicists interested in fundamental questions to keep the burning questions at the heart of physics alive for a future, post-Cold War era.
it's an interesting argument, and Kaiser is quite even-handed in the weight he assigns to fringe physicists in important discoveries in spite of the grandiose title. Mainly, these physicists in their study of things like ESP and other elements of parapsychology and the connections between quantum mechanics (particularly the issue of nonlocality) were wrong more often than they were right. Their importance lay in the fact that they kept the torch burning for the pursuit of fundamental questions, and, Kaiser notes, their highly public mistakes and deviations paved the way for more mainstream thinkers to make advances in the field of physics - particularly in subfields like laser technology and quantum encryption and computing.
All in all, Kaiser has done his homework on the historical and scientific sides. More importantly, he can write! The story unfolds interestingly enough and he brings a touch of elliptical structure to the narrative that gives just enough ambiguity in the beginning for you to wonder, "How the heck are these flower-power-mystically-oriented 'physicists' going to actually contribute to cutting age science and technology coming into maturity today?" Along the way, Kaiser delves into the personal lives and scandals facing the members of the group, tracing the evolution of their lives as the field of physics changed around them. It's an intriguing and unlikely story presented from an innovative angle. I don't quite agree 100% that the Hippies literally saved physics in the sense that Kaiser seems to think they did. Mainstream physics was surely undergoing huge changes, particularly in particle physics and in the development of esoteric theories of everything like String Theory quite independent of the New Left movement. Brilliant minds like John Wheeler, Richard Feynman, Freeman Dyson, Ed Witten and Leonard Susskind were revolutionizing the field in America while maintaining quite a bit of distance from the core group of Hippies and their benefactors identified by Kaiser. Nor were the crew of the Fundamental Fysiks Group the only ones asking foundational questions about how to interpret quantum mechanics. While the Copenhagen Interpretation had its foundation in the 1920s and 30s, other interpretations and QM formalisms were still being developed - and in America nonetheless (Hugh Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation developed in the late 50s and popularized by Bryce DeWitt in the 60s and 70s being one of the most popular). This reinterpretation most certainly did not come out of the Hippy movement and does show that there were people out there interested in the big philosophical questions surrounding the New Physics. Nevertheless, it's a fun story and the bulk of Kaiser's argument is almost certainly correct. Plus, I don't think there's a work quite like it out there and if you're a child of the era or a fan of popular science in general, you'll be highly pleased with this book.
it's an interesting argument, and Kaiser is quite even-handed in the weight he assigns to fringe physicists in important discoveries in spite of the grandiose title. Mainly, these physicists in their study of things like ESP and other elements of parapsychology and the connections between quantum mechanics (particularly the issue of nonlocality) were wrong more often than they were right. Their importance lay in the fact that they kept the torch burning for the pursuit of fundamental questions, and, Kaiser notes, their highly public mistakes and deviations paved the way for more mainstream thinkers to make advances in the field of physics - particularly in subfields like laser technology and quantum encryption and computing.
All in all, Kaiser has done his homework on the historical and scientific sides. More importantly, he can write! The story unfolds interestingly enough and he brings a touch of elliptical structure to the narrative that gives just enough ambiguity in the beginning for you to wonder, "How the heck are these flower-power-mystically-oriented 'physicists' going to actually contribute to cutting age science and technology coming into maturity today?" Along the way, Kaiser delves into the personal lives and scandals facing the members of the group, tracing the evolution of their lives as the field of physics changed around them. It's an intriguing and unlikely story presented from an innovative angle. I don't quite agree 100% that the Hippies literally saved physics in the sense that Kaiser seems to think they did. Mainstream physics was surely undergoing huge changes, particularly in particle physics and in the development of esoteric theories of everything like String Theory quite independent of the New Left movement. Brilliant minds like John Wheeler, Richard Feynman, Freeman Dyson, Ed Witten and Leonard Susskind were revolutionizing the field in America while maintaining quite a bit of distance from the core group of Hippies and their benefactors identified by Kaiser. Nor were the crew of the Fundamental Fysiks Group the only ones asking foundational questions about how to interpret quantum mechanics. While the Copenhagen Interpretation had its foundation in the 1920s and 30s, other interpretations and QM formalisms were still being developed - and in America nonetheless (Hugh Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation developed in the late 50s and popularized by Bryce DeWitt in the 60s and 70s being one of the most popular). This reinterpretation most certainly did not come out of the Hippy movement and does show that there were people out there interested in the big philosophical questions surrounding the New Physics. Nevertheless, it's a fun story and the bulk of Kaiser's argument is almost certainly correct. Plus, I don't think there's a work quite like it out there and if you're a child of the era or a fan of popular science in general, you'll be highly pleased with this book.
July 26, 2019
Don't read this book unless you like the genres of history and biography (in addition to Physics). Also, don't be fooled by the catchy title because in the end, I don't think Kaiser proved that the Hippies actually saved physics. However, if you love history this book gives a great account of the personalities in modern Physics from Einstein to Bell to Hawking and everyone in between - with particular attention given to the some of the quirkier personalities who dabbled in or bankrolled physics.
The writing style of this author is voluminous and detailed. It kind of reminds me of John M Barry, who wrote "The Great Influenza". Many people thought that book was too long and they just couldn't get through it. To actually get through that book you also had to be interested in a few genres/disciplines (specifically medicine, pathology, history and biography). Another book this reminds me of is Dancing Naked in Minefield by Kary Mullis, although that book is an autobiography about the man who won the Nobel Prize for discovering DNA. When I read Mullis' book and he recounted visiting astral planes and almost overdosing on nitrous oxide I was fascinated about what would drive him to do that. This book explains in detail the juices that many of the great minds of our time were marinating in... guys who went on to produce weapons systems, medical breakthroughs, quantum encryption, personal computers, and thousands of patents for things we use everyday.
The little trivia bits were great. He details how Werner Earnhardt (the creator of the self-help classes) got caught in the middle of a pissing match between physicists and came out with a sullied reputation just because he funded symposiums. He recounts how on the historic day in 1968 when Columbia University was shut down due to riots the guy in the physics lab was inspired with an idea that became the kernel of quantum encryption. Another interesting tidbit was that Niels Bohr was so fascinated with the taijitu (Yin/Yang symbol) that he put it on his coat of arms. Most whacky though was the guy in Philly who called himself "The Unicorn" who both created the first List Serve in conjunction with Bell (the telephone one, not the physicist) while also hiding the body of his dead girlfriend in a trunk in his home. Good stuff..
Throughout the book he discusses the developments of quantum theory and the lives of the physicists. I guess the reason why I gave this book 4 stars is because I am fascinated how physics evolved during the 20th Century. Wars happen - and during those times the physicists are absorbed into the military-industrial complex and are told to "shut up and compute". They work in secret and are carefully monitored by the military brass, CIA, etc. Peacetime comes, budgets are cut and these same geniuses sometimes go on welfare or have to pander themselves just to eat. Various movements come and go and only in hindsight do we see that McCarthyism and the Vietnam draft drove some of our best minds to Europe and Canada. Another crazy unexpected synergy is how the caps were lifted on immigration from Asia and in the 60's and 70's and we saw this huge influx of people from the East bringing with them "Eastern Thought". Accordingly physicists began to find correlations between Eastern Philosophy and Metaphysics. All the while quantum physics evolves, the scientific process marches on and the work on the fringe of quantum physics (metaphysics) continues. History tells us that it's always the guys on the fringe who stumble onto the unexpected phenomena or the accidental result. This book definitely covers that "fringe".
I noticed that a lot of people have this book on their "To Read" list and that not many people have actually read it yet. I suggest you get off the fence and give it a whirl.
The writing style of this author is voluminous and detailed. It kind of reminds me of John M Barry, who wrote "The Great Influenza". Many people thought that book was too long and they just couldn't get through it. To actually get through that book you also had to be interested in a few genres/disciplines (specifically medicine, pathology, history and biography). Another book this reminds me of is Dancing Naked in Minefield by Kary Mullis, although that book is an autobiography about the man who won the Nobel Prize for discovering DNA. When I read Mullis' book and he recounted visiting astral planes and almost overdosing on nitrous oxide I was fascinated about what would drive him to do that. This book explains in detail the juices that many of the great minds of our time were marinating in... guys who went on to produce weapons systems, medical breakthroughs, quantum encryption, personal computers, and thousands of patents for things we use everyday.
The little trivia bits were great. He details how Werner Earnhardt (the creator of the self-help classes) got caught in the middle of a pissing match between physicists and came out with a sullied reputation just because he funded symposiums. He recounts how on the historic day in 1968 when Columbia University was shut down due to riots the guy in the physics lab was inspired with an idea that became the kernel of quantum encryption. Another interesting tidbit was that Niels Bohr was so fascinated with the taijitu (Yin/Yang symbol) that he put it on his coat of arms. Most whacky though was the guy in Philly who called himself "The Unicorn" who both created the first List Serve in conjunction with Bell (the telephone one, not the physicist) while also hiding the body of his dead girlfriend in a trunk in his home. Good stuff..
Throughout the book he discusses the developments of quantum theory and the lives of the physicists. I guess the reason why I gave this book 4 stars is because I am fascinated how physics evolved during the 20th Century. Wars happen - and during those times the physicists are absorbed into the military-industrial complex and are told to "shut up and compute". They work in secret and are carefully monitored by the military brass, CIA, etc. Peacetime comes, budgets are cut and these same geniuses sometimes go on welfare or have to pander themselves just to eat. Various movements come and go and only in hindsight do we see that McCarthyism and the Vietnam draft drove some of our best minds to Europe and Canada. Another crazy unexpected synergy is how the caps were lifted on immigration from Asia and in the 60's and 70's and we saw this huge influx of people from the East bringing with them "Eastern Thought". Accordingly physicists began to find correlations between Eastern Philosophy and Metaphysics. All the while quantum physics evolves, the scientific process marches on and the work on the fringe of quantum physics (metaphysics) continues. History tells us that it's always the guys on the fringe who stumble onto the unexpected phenomena or the accidental result. This book definitely covers that "fringe".
I noticed that a lot of people have this book on their "To Read" list and that not many people have actually read it yet. I suggest you get off the fence and give it a whirl.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 11, 2021
If someone had told me fifteen years ago that I would one day read a whole book on physics FOR FUN, I would have laughed. No way. Nuh-uh. Never. Nope.
You see, I have never been into science.
I believe in it, I’m grateful to it, but I’m not particularly interested in it.
Science, to me, always felt rigid: you must set up an experiment this way, you must have a precise outcome, you must use this formula.
There is no space for unbridled imagination in science. Or so I thought.
Because quantum mechanics, specifically quantum physics, is the big outlier here. Quantum physics requires a ton of imagination. More, as it turns out, than most physicists could handle over the course of the 20th century.
As Kaiser shows, quantum physics required such a leap (one might even say a quantum leap - sorry) in thinking that those scientists interested in exploring it were not at all taking seriously by their colleagues.
They were told to “shut up and calculate” (also the title of one of Kaiser’s chapters).
They had difficulty finding work in academia.
They were told that philosophy had no place in physics.
(That last one angers me the most - way to close off your mind a priori!)
But there was one place where those who felt drawn to theoretical physics did find a home: the Fundamental Fysiks Group, a discussion group started by two graduate physics students at Berkeley (Elizabeth Rauscher and George Weissmann). Soon, their group attracted likeminded physicists from all over California, and then from across the country. While all around them, physics departments were moving away from philosophical questions about the nature of reality in order to focus on Cold War efforts (nuclear weapons and the like), the Fundamental Fysiks Group was a safe haven to discuss everyone’s wildest theories, pre-read each other’s article drafts, and share the latest findings on the very fabric of the universe itself.
Most (though not all) of the group’s members were also members of the counterculture: “hippies,” so to speak. They took LSD, smoked pot, grew out their hair and lived in small apartments in the Bay Area. Some took an active interest in the paranormal, Eastern religions, or both.
Needless to say, these interests and activities didn’t do much to improve their stature among mainstream scientists.
And yet, those scientists turned out to be missing a lot by being so close-minded.
Because as it turns out, the title of this book is not much of an exaggeration: the discussions, ideas, and experiments of the Fundamental Fysiks Group led to some of the most crucial discoveries in quantum physics today.
As Kaiser shows, some of the theories that only Fundamental Fysiks Group members dared to entertain seriously are now part of standard physics textbooks.
This, to me, underscores two things I have long believed:
1. The counterculture was NOT a pointless, hedonistic mess (far from it)
2. Real progress of any kind requires real imagination. One has to dare to think well beyond the bounds of the acceptable in order to take any kind of step forward. Without room to debate even the strangest theories, you might never discover that one of them was right.
I love how Kaiser combines historical overview with anecdote, and mixes that historical bend with stripped down explanations of some of the fundamentals of theoretical physics (more on that in a sec).
Take this anecdote, for example (for context, you should know that Esalen Institute is a New Age-y organization in Big Sur, and Saul-Paul Sirag, Nick Herbert, and Bernard d’Espagnat are all renowned physicists):
“On their way from Esalen to retrieve d’Espagnat from the local airport, Sirag and Herbert picked up a waterlogged hitchhiker, who had gotten doused in a big storm. Upon climbing into the backseat of their car, he announced that he was an armed robber, recently released from prison who was making his way north to find food, clothes, and shelter. At the airport, d’Espagnat traded places with the hitchhiker in the car for the return trip. When Herbert and Sirag told him about their recent adventure, d’Espagnat replied (without missing a beat): ‘Who do you think is more dangerous - an armed robber or a theoretical physicist?’ Once safely ensconced at Esalen, d’Espagnat quickly fell into a routine. He held ‘office hours’ in the famous hot tubs: only once he and his interlocutors were relining, naked, in the hot-spring baths would he discuss Bell’s theorem and quantum nonlocality.”
I LOVE IT.
Tidbits like those made me feel like I was really getting to know the members of this group, as people as well as scientists.
Ok. At this point you’re probably wondering just how deeply Kaiser gets into the specifics of theoretical physics itself. To that I can say: for a scientist, not very deeply at all. For me, pretty deeply.
And yet!
As a 100% alpha I could follow most of what he was saying. At a rudimentary level, I understand entanglement, Bell’s theorem, the EPR paradox and Schrödinger’s cat. I think I get the gist of nonlocality. Still working on that.
I do not understand how something can be both a particle and a wave, nor do I get any of the actual experiments that Clauser and Aspect set up to test Bell’s theorem. I tried really hard, but nope - one bridge too far.
Luckily, one does not have to understand the specifics of each experiment to still follow along with Kaiser’s narrative.
The one chapter where he really lost me, though, was the one on quantum encryption. That’s the thing most theoretical physicists seem to be working on these days, if I’m to believe the newspapers. Yet...I don’t get it and (probably as a result) I also don’t really care. That chapter was so scientifically dense that I found myself reading faster to get back to the comprehensible stuff.
But that’s only one chapter, out of 10! Overall, I felt like the theory was broken down in such a way that even I could follow it, and I loved it.
My very favorite chapter is the one entitled: “From Ψ to Psi.” (that first symbol is the Greek letter psi). In this chapter, Kaiser traces the connections several Fundamental Fysiks Group members made between theories of consciousness and quantum physics. Absolutely fascinating, and convincing.
I don’t understand them well enough yet to recount their exact theories here, but I do understand this:
Some Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, believe that everything in the universe is connected. It’s a holistic view: none of us are truly individuals, so to speak, but we are inextricably intertwined with others, and with nature.
The theoretical physics concept of entanglement says the exact same thing.
In fact, entanglement proves that such a deep interconnection is indisputably real. When two particles are entangled, their properties become somehow linked, so that they can change and affect each other, even if they’re light years apart. Light years! They have no way to communicate, and yet they somehow remain connected. (Einstein called this “spooky actions at a distance”).
As physicist John Wheeler says somewhere in the book: “Consciousness enters quantum theory unavoidable and unalterably.”
Also super interesting: the whole idea of a participatory universe. Again, I don’t understand it well enough yet to relay it here. But what I do get is this: particles exist in a “fuzzy” state, with both upward and downward spin. Its characteristics only become definite at the moment of measurement.
This means that our own observation (measurement) changes the thing itself. After all, before measurement it existed in ambiguous state.
If our observation changes the thing, that means our observation changes something in the universe. In that sense, the universe is not static, but participatory.
What, what, what?
I want to read so much more about this.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I appreciate the way it has shown me a segment of the counterculture I knew nothing about yet, and how it makes far-out science (mostly) accessible. Love, love, love. Would wholly recommend it to anyone interested in the 1960s and/or a more philosophical approach to science. Thanks, David Kaiser, for rescuing this narrative from the margins of history.
(PS. I also really recommend Professor Brian Greene’s video’s on YouTube, such as his breakdown of Bell’s Theorem and his documentary Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap. They form great companions to some parts of Kaiser’s book!)
You see, I have never been into science.
I believe in it, I’m grateful to it, but I’m not particularly interested in it.
Science, to me, always felt rigid: you must set up an experiment this way, you must have a precise outcome, you must use this formula.
There is no space for unbridled imagination in science. Or so I thought.
Because quantum mechanics, specifically quantum physics, is the big outlier here. Quantum physics requires a ton of imagination. More, as it turns out, than most physicists could handle over the course of the 20th century.
As Kaiser shows, quantum physics required such a leap (one might even say a quantum leap - sorry) in thinking that those scientists interested in exploring it were not at all taking seriously by their colleagues.
They were told to “shut up and calculate” (also the title of one of Kaiser’s chapters).
They had difficulty finding work in academia.
They were told that philosophy had no place in physics.
(That last one angers me the most - way to close off your mind a priori!)
But there was one place where those who felt drawn to theoretical physics did find a home: the Fundamental Fysiks Group, a discussion group started by two graduate physics students at Berkeley (Elizabeth Rauscher and George Weissmann). Soon, their group attracted likeminded physicists from all over California, and then from across the country. While all around them, physics departments were moving away from philosophical questions about the nature of reality in order to focus on Cold War efforts (nuclear weapons and the like), the Fundamental Fysiks Group was a safe haven to discuss everyone’s wildest theories, pre-read each other’s article drafts, and share the latest findings on the very fabric of the universe itself.
Most (though not all) of the group’s members were also members of the counterculture: “hippies,” so to speak. They took LSD, smoked pot, grew out their hair and lived in small apartments in the Bay Area. Some took an active interest in the paranormal, Eastern religions, or both.
Needless to say, these interests and activities didn’t do much to improve their stature among mainstream scientists.
And yet, those scientists turned out to be missing a lot by being so close-minded.
Because as it turns out, the title of this book is not much of an exaggeration: the discussions, ideas, and experiments of the Fundamental Fysiks Group led to some of the most crucial discoveries in quantum physics today.
As Kaiser shows, some of the theories that only Fundamental Fysiks Group members dared to entertain seriously are now part of standard physics textbooks.
This, to me, underscores two things I have long believed:
1. The counterculture was NOT a pointless, hedonistic mess (far from it)
2. Real progress of any kind requires real imagination. One has to dare to think well beyond the bounds of the acceptable in order to take any kind of step forward. Without room to debate even the strangest theories, you might never discover that one of them was right.
I love how Kaiser combines historical overview with anecdote, and mixes that historical bend with stripped down explanations of some of the fundamentals of theoretical physics (more on that in a sec).
Take this anecdote, for example (for context, you should know that Esalen Institute is a New Age-y organization in Big Sur, and Saul-Paul Sirag, Nick Herbert, and Bernard d’Espagnat are all renowned physicists):
“On their way from Esalen to retrieve d’Espagnat from the local airport, Sirag and Herbert picked up a waterlogged hitchhiker, who had gotten doused in a big storm. Upon climbing into the backseat of their car, he announced that he was an armed robber, recently released from prison who was making his way north to find food, clothes, and shelter. At the airport, d’Espagnat traded places with the hitchhiker in the car for the return trip. When Herbert and Sirag told him about their recent adventure, d’Espagnat replied (without missing a beat): ‘Who do you think is more dangerous - an armed robber or a theoretical physicist?’ Once safely ensconced at Esalen, d’Espagnat quickly fell into a routine. He held ‘office hours’ in the famous hot tubs: only once he and his interlocutors were relining, naked, in the hot-spring baths would he discuss Bell’s theorem and quantum nonlocality.”
I LOVE IT.
Tidbits like those made me feel like I was really getting to know the members of this group, as people as well as scientists.
Ok. At this point you’re probably wondering just how deeply Kaiser gets into the specifics of theoretical physics itself. To that I can say: for a scientist, not very deeply at all. For me, pretty deeply.
And yet!
As a 100% alpha I could follow most of what he was saying. At a rudimentary level, I understand entanglement, Bell’s theorem, the EPR paradox and Schrödinger’s cat. I think I get the gist of nonlocality. Still working on that.
I do not understand how something can be both a particle and a wave, nor do I get any of the actual experiments that Clauser and Aspect set up to test Bell’s theorem. I tried really hard, but nope - one bridge too far.
Luckily, one does not have to understand the specifics of each experiment to still follow along with Kaiser’s narrative.
The one chapter where he really lost me, though, was the one on quantum encryption. That’s the thing most theoretical physicists seem to be working on these days, if I’m to believe the newspapers. Yet...I don’t get it and (probably as a result) I also don’t really care. That chapter was so scientifically dense that I found myself reading faster to get back to the comprehensible stuff.
But that’s only one chapter, out of 10! Overall, I felt like the theory was broken down in such a way that even I could follow it, and I loved it.
My very favorite chapter is the one entitled: “From Ψ to Psi.” (that first symbol is the Greek letter psi). In this chapter, Kaiser traces the connections several Fundamental Fysiks Group members made between theories of consciousness and quantum physics. Absolutely fascinating, and convincing.
I don’t understand them well enough yet to recount their exact theories here, but I do understand this:
Some Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, believe that everything in the universe is connected. It’s a holistic view: none of us are truly individuals, so to speak, but we are inextricably intertwined with others, and with nature.
The theoretical physics concept of entanglement says the exact same thing.
In fact, entanglement proves that such a deep interconnection is indisputably real. When two particles are entangled, their properties become somehow linked, so that they can change and affect each other, even if they’re light years apart. Light years! They have no way to communicate, and yet they somehow remain connected. (Einstein called this “spooky actions at a distance”).
As physicist John Wheeler says somewhere in the book: “Consciousness enters quantum theory unavoidable and unalterably.”
Also super interesting: the whole idea of a participatory universe. Again, I don’t understand it well enough yet to relay it here. But what I do get is this: particles exist in a “fuzzy” state, with both upward and downward spin. Its characteristics only become definite at the moment of measurement.
This means that our own observation (measurement) changes the thing itself. After all, before measurement it existed in ambiguous state.
If our observation changes the thing, that means our observation changes something in the universe. In that sense, the universe is not static, but participatory.
What, what, what?
I want to read so much more about this.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I appreciate the way it has shown me a segment of the counterculture I knew nothing about yet, and how it makes far-out science (mostly) accessible. Love, love, love. Would wholly recommend it to anyone interested in the 1960s and/or a more philosophical approach to science. Thanks, David Kaiser, for rescuing this narrative from the margins of history.
(PS. I also really recommend Professor Brian Greene’s video’s on YouTube, such as his breakdown of Bell’s Theorem and his documentary Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap. They form great companions to some parts of Kaiser’s book!)
October 12, 2023
Great book on
November 4, 2017
A good friend of mine, knowing how much I like trivia and history, bought me this book at a Boston book signing event. He had asked David Kaiser to write 'enjoy the antics, best p.s. finish your PhD!'. At the time I was writing my PhD thesis in physics and though I appreciated the gift and David Kaiser's signature, I didn't like the exaggerated title. I have been a bit averse of popular science books lately. Maybe, I thought, I had outgrown such books. Years later I had a chance to slowly read the book and I have to say I really did enjoy the antics.
When I was a teenager, I read Fritjof Capra's Tao of Physics. That was when I knew nothing of physics nor of philosophy. I vaguely remember that at the time I really liked the book. Later on as I studied physics on a more serious footing, and a bit of philosophy here and there, my recollection/perception of Tao of Physics gradually changed. In the changed version I always thought of Tao of Physics and other books of the same ilk as the works of drug addled hacks. David Kaiser's book is a refreshing look at the era when New Age flavored books about physics gained popularity. Through his fascinating story of physicists of the 60s and 70s, I learned that Fritjof Capra was far from a hack; he was a brilliant scientist. He and his book were the products of a cyclical boom and bust of the physics and science funding. The Viennese Capra, was in fact a particle physics PhD from university of Vienna who had worked at Berkley and Santa Cruz and was in correspondence with Victor Weisskopf (Manhattan Project Theory Division Leader and major contributor to Quantum Electrodynamics theory). Like many physics PhDs he found himself without a position and for a while was just sitting without pay at the Imperial College of London (in a room emptied by staff due to budget cuts) and writing a more scientifically rigorous book. However, to get a publishing deal, and with the encouragement of Weisskopf, he changed the book, threw out the mathematical parts and the rest is history. A bestseller was born.
David Kaisers book is full of interesting stories of physicists who struggled and beat a different drum. The bust cycle of the late 60s and 70s forced physicists to think differently about physics as well as forcing them to figure ways of earning a living. Popular books of a New Age flavor were born out of such an environment. The 90s bust after the cold war pushed physicists and mathematicians to the wall street where they made new financial instruments and money making trading algorithms. Out of the turmoil important contributions and clarifications of physics concepts arose.
Now as a struggling wanna be physicist, and one who has gone down many rabbit holes in pursuits of figuring things out, I have gained new appreciation for the long history of the tribe of physicists. I can see that I am not alone in the wilderness and for this I really appreciate Kaiser's book.
When I was a teenager, I read Fritjof Capra's Tao of Physics. That was when I knew nothing of physics nor of philosophy. I vaguely remember that at the time I really liked the book. Later on as I studied physics on a more serious footing, and a bit of philosophy here and there, my recollection/perception of Tao of Physics gradually changed. In the changed version I always thought of Tao of Physics and other books of the same ilk as the works of drug addled hacks. David Kaiser's book is a refreshing look at the era when New Age flavored books about physics gained popularity. Through his fascinating story of physicists of the 60s and 70s, I learned that Fritjof Capra was far from a hack; he was a brilliant scientist. He and his book were the products of a cyclical boom and bust of the physics and science funding. The Viennese Capra, was in fact a particle physics PhD from university of Vienna who had worked at Berkley and Santa Cruz and was in correspondence with Victor Weisskopf (Manhattan Project Theory Division Leader and major contributor to Quantum Electrodynamics theory). Like many physics PhDs he found himself without a position and for a while was just sitting without pay at the Imperial College of London (in a room emptied by staff due to budget cuts) and writing a more scientifically rigorous book. However, to get a publishing deal, and with the encouragement of Weisskopf, he changed the book, threw out the mathematical parts and the rest is history. A bestseller was born.
David Kaisers book is full of interesting stories of physicists who struggled and beat a different drum. The bust cycle of the late 60s and 70s forced physicists to think differently about physics as well as forcing them to figure ways of earning a living. Popular books of a New Age flavor were born out of such an environment. The 90s bust after the cold war pushed physicists and mathematicians to the wall street where they made new financial instruments and money making trading algorithms. Out of the turmoil important contributions and clarifications of physics concepts arose.
Now as a struggling wanna be physicist, and one who has gone down many rabbit holes in pursuits of figuring things out, I have gained new appreciation for the long history of the tribe of physicists. I can see that I am not alone in the wilderness and for this I really appreciate Kaiser's book.
August 7, 2013
I finished this book in 2 days which for me is fast, this not being a novel, and containing some technical terms although not too many to be scary.
In the first chapters, I found myself thinking, "no matter how well put together this book might turn out to be, does the subject matter really merit a book's worth of research?" The actual influence of the Fundamental Fysiks Group seemed dubious by the initial descriptions. One the book delved into simple explanations on the work of Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, Schrodinger concerning the foundations of quantum physics, I forgot about the group and started seeing how cool the physics itself was. I found myself postulating on the possible parallels that could be formed between these new ideas and other subjects such as consciousness, religion, sociology, law, etc. I have always been fascinated by theoretical physics, but in the few courses I have taken, my philosophical questions concerning the meaning of substances, interactions, or properties have never even been entertained, let alone answered. So it was that when the author returned to the FFG and their similar ruminations, my interest was spiked.
The only regret I have is that, while sufficient background was given to illuminate the lay reader on the physics being discussed, very little description is given of the three eastern philosophies to which the new quantum physical ideas were compared to by the members of the group, and especially Fritjof Capra in his, "The Tao of Physics." I understand that this book wasn't intended to focus or expound on this metaphor (we can read that book ourselves), but thought it would have been helpful to understand that chapter that went into detail about Capra's book and related ideas.
The things the book does touch on extensively throughout is Bell's theorem, including nonlocality and quantum entanglement, and efforts to harness these phenomena to provide faster-than-light communication, for use in various imagined pursuits, practical or not.
One other regret can't be shared here, for fear of spoiling an important, and oft repeated immediate physical outcome of their efforts. But I must admit that sometimes, after pondering the deepest questions and imaginatively correlating them with bizarre physics theories that I have heard discussed, I am "snapped back into reality," and mechanically find myself asking, as does one of the characters in the book, "Do we have to do bad physics to feel good?"
In the first chapters, I found myself thinking, "no matter how well put together this book might turn out to be, does the subject matter really merit a book's worth of research?" The actual influence of the Fundamental Fysiks Group seemed dubious by the initial descriptions. One the book delved into simple explanations on the work of Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen, Schrodinger concerning the foundations of quantum physics, I forgot about the group and started seeing how cool the physics itself was. I found myself postulating on the possible parallels that could be formed between these new ideas and other subjects such as consciousness, religion, sociology, law, etc. I have always been fascinated by theoretical physics, but in the few courses I have taken, my philosophical questions concerning the meaning of substances, interactions, or properties have never even been entertained, let alone answered. So it was that when the author returned to the FFG and their similar ruminations, my interest was spiked.
The only regret I have is that, while sufficient background was given to illuminate the lay reader on the physics being discussed, very little description is given of the three eastern philosophies to which the new quantum physical ideas were compared to by the members of the group, and especially Fritjof Capra in his, "The Tao of Physics." I understand that this book wasn't intended to focus or expound on this metaphor (we can read that book ourselves), but thought it would have been helpful to understand that chapter that went into detail about Capra's book and related ideas.
The things the book does touch on extensively throughout is Bell's theorem, including nonlocality and quantum entanglement, and efforts to harness these phenomena to provide faster-than-light communication, for use in various imagined pursuits, practical or not.
One other regret can't be shared here, for fear of spoiling an important, and oft repeated immediate physical outcome of their efforts. But I must admit that sometimes, after pondering the deepest questions and imaginatively correlating them with bizarre physics theories that I have heard discussed, I am "snapped back into reality," and mechanically find myself asking, as does one of the characters in the book, "Do we have to do bad physics to feel good?"
July 11, 2011
How The Hippies Saved Physics, Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival by David Kaiser
David Kaiser is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This book is a history of science book. It is also a popular science book. The book describes how quantum physics which many considered to be fringe science became accepted science. It is a very strange, eccentric, and interesting story.
The book focuses on a group called the Fundamental Fysiks Group which held sessions at the University of California Berkeley. Berkeley California is known for its eccentricity and counterculture. The Fundamental Fysiks Group was instrumental in making quantum mechanics acceptable science.
The cast of characters in this book is very different; Jack Sarfatti, Paul Sirag, and Nick Herbert are the central people covered. There is also quite a bit in the early chapters on Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, and Erwin Schrodinger. There are also numerous scientists spread throughout the book including Richard Feynman and Fritjof Capra who wrote The Dancing Wu Li Masters.
The story is very eccentric and outright strange to the point where it is funny. There are very surprising sources of funding for the experiments which helped establish quantum physics. There is the Esalen institute a New Age retreat in California, Werner Erhard and Est who were part of the human potential movement, Henry Dakin the philanthropist and supporter of paranormal research, and the CIA with its remote viewing experiments.
The experiments themselves are very interesting to read about. They prove things like quantum encryption, nonlocality, and entanglement. Some experiments do not succeed like faster than light communication.
This is a fascinating history about a very unusual topic which most people have a difficult time understanding. It shows a process where fringe science is made into accepted science.
The book is very easy to read. It mostly focuses on the people behind the story, not the physics. The writing is very clear. There is an index, extensive notes, and bibliography. There are numeous black and white photographs and easy to understand diagrams. I found it to be a delightful book to read.
David Kaiser is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This book is a history of science book. It is also a popular science book. The book describes how quantum physics which many considered to be fringe science became accepted science. It is a very strange, eccentric, and interesting story.
The book focuses on a group called the Fundamental Fysiks Group which held sessions at the University of California Berkeley. Berkeley California is known for its eccentricity and counterculture. The Fundamental Fysiks Group was instrumental in making quantum mechanics acceptable science.
The cast of characters in this book is very different; Jack Sarfatti, Paul Sirag, and Nick Herbert are the central people covered. There is also quite a bit in the early chapters on Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, and Erwin Schrodinger. There are also numerous scientists spread throughout the book including Richard Feynman and Fritjof Capra who wrote The Dancing Wu Li Masters.
The story is very eccentric and outright strange to the point where it is funny. There are very surprising sources of funding for the experiments which helped establish quantum physics. There is the Esalen institute a New Age retreat in California, Werner Erhard and Est who were part of the human potential movement, Henry Dakin the philanthropist and supporter of paranormal research, and the CIA with its remote viewing experiments.
The experiments themselves are very interesting to read about. They prove things like quantum encryption, nonlocality, and entanglement. Some experiments do not succeed like faster than light communication.
This is a fascinating history about a very unusual topic which most people have a difficult time understanding. It shows a process where fringe science is made into accepted science.
The book is very easy to read. It mostly focuses on the people behind the story, not the physics. The writing is very clear. There is an index, extensive notes, and bibliography. There are numeous black and white photographs and easy to understand diagrams. I found it to be a delightful book to read.
January 4, 2013
I enjoyed this book for a couple of what I imagine to be fairly idiosyncratic reasons: (1) the description of the post-Cold War shifts in the politics and economics of science research and education and the implications for the direction of the field of physics in general and the careers of individual scientists, and (2) the description of the evolution of scholarly communication in the face of advances in communication technology and biases of mainstream disciplinary organs regarding certain types of research. A reader who does not find these subjects interesting for personal/professional reasons may well find the amount of coverage devoted to them to be rather tedious.
I picked this book up on a visit to the library for books about science in the pre-enlightenment era, because I was trying to understand more about how knowledge was classified in a worldview that didn't have the strong distinctions we now take for granted between "science," "magic," and "religion." This book was particularly illuminating in connection to that project because it illustrated how some of those distinctions aren't as firm as we might suppose even in the modern age. This account would likewise be fruitful fodder for a budding philosopher of science considering whether, why, and how scientific means of investigation might be applied to what seem to be patently unscientific ideas, like ESP and communication with the dead.
I suspect it would be interesting to read this book in tandem with Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, which explores overlapping themes of how new age and/or paranormal ideas intersect with more mainstream American culture, but from a very different angle.
I picked this book up on a visit to the library for books about science in the pre-enlightenment era, because I was trying to understand more about how knowledge was classified in a worldview that didn't have the strong distinctions we now take for granted between "science," "magic," and "religion." This book was particularly illuminating in connection to that project because it illustrated how some of those distinctions aren't as firm as we might suppose even in the modern age. This account would likewise be fruitful fodder for a budding philosopher of science considering whether, why, and how scientific means of investigation might be applied to what seem to be patently unscientific ideas, like ESP and communication with the dead.
I suspect it would be interesting to read this book in tandem with Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, which explores overlapping themes of how new age and/or paranormal ideas intersect with more mainstream American culture, but from a very different angle.
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