The Infamous Boundary: Seven Decades of Controversy in Quantum Physics

by David Wick

reprinted in the British trade journal Physics World in 1990, three separate and 5 lengthy replies from establishment physicists were printed in subsequent issues. For outsiders, especially scientists who rely on physicist's theories in their own fields, this situation is disquieting. Moreover, many recall their introduction to quantum mechanics as a startling, if not shocking, experience. A molecular biologist related how he had started in theoretical physics but, after hearing the ideology of quantum mechanics, marched straight to the Reg­ istrar's office and switched fields. A colleague recalled how her undergraduate chemistry professor religiously entertained queries from the class - until one day he began with the words: "No questions will be permitted on today's lecture." The topic, of course, was quantum mechanics. My father, an organic chemist at a Midwestern university, also had to give that dreaded annual lecture. Around age 16, I picked up a little book he used to prepare and was perplexed by the author's tone, which seemed apologetic to the point of pleading. It was my first brush with the quantum theory. 6 Eventually, I went to graduate school in physics. By then I had acquired an historical bent, which developed out of an episode in my freshman year in college. To relieve the tedium of the introductory physics course, I set out to understand Einstein's theory of relativity (the so-called Special Theory of 1905, not the later and more difficult General Theory of 1915). This went badly at first.

Genres: Science

256 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1994

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Physics since Einstein - a history with explanations. Einstein makes trouble for Bohr, Bohr makes trouble for Einstein, Heisenberg confuses everybody, physicists take sides, all manner of weird shit turns out to be true, some guy named Bohm might have the key to the universe but he's a commie and can't get work so he makes for Brazil. Somewhere along the way the narrative peels off into the spooky mindfuck zones of modern physics, after which even the most hidebound physicalist/materialist will find the space around him imbued with a mystical ludicrousness that may as well be magic, priming him for the joining of esoteric religious orders or possibly a psychotic break, which is pretty much the same thing.

Infamous Boundary reads not like some half-ass, physics-for-the-masses jive turkey bidness - it's serious about presenting the science (though mercifully light on the actual math). David Wick can write his ass off, makes all those dashes and dots of the quantum world dance and fly around and seem pretty fucking cool, even if you have no hope of ever really understanding. Be consoled in the knowledge that physicists - even those supergenius ones - who commit their life to advancing and understanding the science are just as clueless as anyone.

[Boaz]

Good popular, entertaining and in-depth discussion of the quantum/classical boundary.