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Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics: The Story of the Science That Shapes Our World
The International Bestseller
A Waterstones Best Popular Science Book 2025
'Ambitious . . . pleasingly full of cutting-edge topics' – New Scientist
Quantum physics is the cornerstone of our world. Yet, at the same time, it’s one of the hardest subjects for ordinary mortals to grasp.
In Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics, a husband-and-wife team – renowned physicist Frank Verstraete and writer Céline Broeckaert – demystifies this essential branch of science. Together, they unravel the reasons the universe behaves in its weird ways – and just why it’s so important to understand them.
In this book, you will
How symmetry governs the universe.The untold stories of pioneering women in quantum science.How quantum principles power our gadgets and lives.The real essence behind quantum puzzles and discoveries.
Part-history and part-popular science, Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics serves as a bridge between the complex world of quantum physics and the curious mind.
'A physics book unlike any other . . . breathtaking' – John Preskill, theoretical physicist and Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech
'Quantum physics has long been mysterious, yet [the authors] succeed, often with brilliance, in making its history and mind-blowing ways accessible to lay readers' – Nature
'Entertaining, unorthodox and highly readable' – Professor Ian Stewart, bestselling co-author of The Science of Discworld
'A delightful book for all those who do not speak the language of mathematics but are curious about the most beautiful of theories and their impact on our lives' – Barbara Terhal, theoretical physicist
A Waterstones Best Popular Science Book 2025
'Ambitious . . . pleasingly full of cutting-edge topics' – New Scientist
Quantum physics is the cornerstone of our world. Yet, at the same time, it’s one of the hardest subjects for ordinary mortals to grasp.
In Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics, a husband-and-wife team – renowned physicist Frank Verstraete and writer Céline Broeckaert – demystifies this essential branch of science. Together, they unravel the reasons the universe behaves in its weird ways – and just why it’s so important to understand them.
In this book, you will
How symmetry governs the universe.The untold stories of pioneering women in quantum science.How quantum principles power our gadgets and lives.The real essence behind quantum puzzles and discoveries.
Part-history and part-popular science, Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics serves as a bridge between the complex world of quantum physics and the curious mind.
'A physics book unlike any other . . . breathtaking' – John Preskill, theoretical physicist and Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech
'Quantum physics has long been mysterious, yet [the authors] succeed, often with brilliance, in making its history and mind-blowing ways accessible to lay readers' – Nature
'Entertaining, unorthodox and highly readable' – Professor Ian Stewart, bestselling co-author of The Science of Discworld
'A delightful book for all those who do not speak the language of mathematics but are curious about the most beautiful of theories and their impact on our lives' – Barbara Terhal, theoretical physicist
352 pages, Hardcover
Published February 10, 2026
53 people are currently reading
351 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 22, 2026
Felt like it was scratching the surface of each topic and rushing onto the next. Pretty much a generalised summary of a physics textbook that still leaves your brain empty, like drinking salty water. Lots of fun facts and interesting ideas though
June 3, 2025
It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work.
A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging object: no matter how wide the swing of a pendulum, the time it takes to complete each arc remains exactly the same.' Unfortunately this doesn't apply however wide the swing - making science accessible is no excuse for inaccuracy.
The big problem was that as a reader I found the structure to be baffling, jumping around between historical context and complex modern physics concepts which are mentioned without then being explained in any way. I can only imagine someone without a science background coming away from it baffled. Physics professors often need help to avoid writing text that is hard to comprehend, but unfortunately Céline Broeckaert isn't a science writer and doesn't seem to realise this. This means there was no one to point out that a sentence like ‘The relationship arises because the laws of physics are symmetrical (invariant) under Galilean transformations’ needs more unpacking than it gets in the book.
Another issue is that obvious questions a general reader might asked get overlooked. For instance we are told (for some reason) that a goldfish looking at the water in its bowl at the molecular level ‘would see ‘everything looks the same. Why? The positions of the water molecule are so random that they look identical no matter the angle from which you look.’ Except water molecules have a distinctive shape that does not look the same whatever angle you look at them from. I know what the authors were getting at - but this is terrible way to say it.
This isn’t helped by the heavy-handed ‘quirkiness’ that sometimes makes it feel like the writing is aimed at children. Take, for instance, ‘One fine day Sir William Rowan Hamilton fell in love. But not just in love, oh no. He fell in love as only an astronomer could: to the moon and back.’ Yet within a page, the book is introducing eigenfrequencies. This is without really saying what they are or how they are used - not surprisingly since no concepts of quantum physics have been introduced at this point in the narrative.
The title is perhaps more literal than the authors intended - certainly no one will understand quantum physics after reading this book. I'm assuming the title is based on the great Richard Feynman's words in QED 'You think I’m going to explain [quantum physics] to you so you can understand it? No, you’re not going to be able to understand it. Why, then, am I going to bother you with all this? Why are you going to sit here all this time, when you won’t be able to understand what I am going to say? It is my task to persuade you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see, my physics students don’t understand it either. This is because I don’t understand it. Nobody does.' Yet Feynman (who only gets a passing mention) made his science communication extremely accessible. This claims to be 'an accessible book on quantum physics.' It is not.
A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging object: no matter how wide the swing of a pendulum, the time it takes to complete each arc remains exactly the same.' Unfortunately this doesn't apply however wide the swing - making science accessible is no excuse for inaccuracy.
The big problem was that as a reader I found the structure to be baffling, jumping around between historical context and complex modern physics concepts which are mentioned without then being explained in any way. I can only imagine someone without a science background coming away from it baffled. Physics professors often need help to avoid writing text that is hard to comprehend, but unfortunately Céline Broeckaert isn't a science writer and doesn't seem to realise this. This means there was no one to point out that a sentence like ‘The relationship arises because the laws of physics are symmetrical (invariant) under Galilean transformations’ needs more unpacking than it gets in the book.
Another issue is that obvious questions a general reader might asked get overlooked. For instance we are told (for some reason) that a goldfish looking at the water in its bowl at the molecular level ‘would see ‘everything looks the same. Why? The positions of the water molecule are so random that they look identical no matter the angle from which you look.’ Except water molecules have a distinctive shape that does not look the same whatever angle you look at them from. I know what the authors were getting at - but this is terrible way to say it.
This isn’t helped by the heavy-handed ‘quirkiness’ that sometimes makes it feel like the writing is aimed at children. Take, for instance, ‘One fine day Sir William Rowan Hamilton fell in love. But not just in love, oh no. He fell in love as only an astronomer could: to the moon and back.’ Yet within a page, the book is introducing eigenfrequencies. This is without really saying what they are or how they are used - not surprisingly since no concepts of quantum physics have been introduced at this point in the narrative.
The title is perhaps more literal than the authors intended - certainly no one will understand quantum physics after reading this book. I'm assuming the title is based on the great Richard Feynman's words in QED 'You think I’m going to explain [quantum physics] to you so you can understand it? No, you’re not going to be able to understand it. Why, then, am I going to bother you with all this? Why are you going to sit here all this time, when you won’t be able to understand what I am going to say? It is my task to persuade you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see, my physics students don’t understand it either. This is because I don’t understand it. Nobody does.' Yet Feynman (who only gets a passing mention) made his science communication extremely accessible. This claims to be 'an accessible book on quantum physics.' It is not.
July 27, 2025
An easy-to-read account of quantum physics that explains quantum physics and its applications. It's not afraid to cover some more arcane topics than the usual popular science book.
October 4, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the audiobook but I’m Ngl even I was abit lost at times
November 16, 2025
Reminded me of why I loved chemistry so much. I wish I was able to read this book through Uni.
Review of advance copy
Failed to answer the question of why nobody understands quantum physics. Some interesting historical stories, but not the best introduction to this subject.
July 21, 2025
I hate quantum physics and this book didn't really change much about that. The stuff that was new was good but much of it wasn't new to and was a bit dull. The book was good but as with most books of this sort I am the problem. Me at 14 years old would probably rate this 5/5 but I know lots of this now so for someone just getting into quantum physics it would be great but if you are already so much as ankle deep it might be a bit dull
July 27, 2025
Borrowed this from the local library in audiobook format. Does not work as an audiobook as it frequently references diagrams that cannot be seen.
Did not finish. Got about 1.5 hours in.
The actual writing is mostly interesting, however is a lot of small segments about different physicists and their contribution to the field.
This makes it hard to keep track of when the topic is as dense as quantum physics.
Did not finish. Got about 1.5 hours in.
The actual writing is mostly interesting, however is a lot of small segments about different physicists and their contribution to the field.
This makes it hard to keep track of when the topic is as dense as quantum physics.
November 14, 2025
There is a reason why nobody understands it, it is because the people explaining it make it way too sciency to understand, too much technical jargon, and definitely not a book to read as an audio, the concepts are too complicated. As much as I would love to try and understand QP, it really needs to be written for a lay person, this one is written for people who already understand physics on at least a basic level, which I am crap at, so although I persevered, in the end I gave up on this book.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews