In Search of Schrodinger's Cat

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The first half of the book is mostly intricate historical accounts of the key players of the story of quantum mechanics over the last century. If you have a grasp on waves, the structure of the atom regarding electrons, special relativity and the photoelectric effect (at around A-level or pre-undergrad standard) then the first half of this book is more of a review and explanation of the history and discovery of these concepts, yet is still very interesting.

The most striking for me was thought about the history: "In this delayed choice experiment something we do now has an irretrievable influence on what we can say about the past. The complex concepts are explained effectively and with care towards not diluting the essential core physical principles down to nothing in the name of simplification and accessibility. It does this by building the topic from the ground up, starting from the first developments of quantum mechanics, all the way through to the current cutting-edge theories in quantum mechanics.He begins with an explanation on the very basic unit of life - "the atom" and the various evolving attempts by scientists to give an accurate description of the structure of an atom (Including the various experiments leading to the discovery of protons, neutrons and electrons). It investigates the atom, radiation, time travel, the birth of the universe, super conductors and life itself. For me now it has become apparent that time travel, teleportation, antimatter and multiple realities are well established phenomena of physics, not of unhealthy imagination. He also uses thought experiments to help the reader understand the crucial concepts and interpretations of quantum physics, including of course Schrödinger's cat. The last 1/3 of the book were a series of explanations of experiments used to prove some of the theorems which were fascinating.

This work lays bare the way scientists work together, solve problems, follow threads, and the implications it has for the world at large is fascinating. It feels surreal to find the natural phenomenon facilitating such an interpretation of the social reality.Physics is about probing into the unknown and what we need is imagination, but imagination in a terrible straitjacket. According to the first of them, Copenhagen interpretations, Chance plays the chancellor or Chairman. The first 120 pages boil the pot handsomely by serving historical aspects like the nature of light, the emergence of electrons, radioactivity, the black body problem, and its unconventional solution that dealt the first blow to classical physics, breaking into the world of a Swiss patent clerk with his 4 papers, one of them being photoelectric effect -that was the proto platform of later quantum developments and so on. When the observer looks into the box, he forces one outcome , which is the cat is either dead or alive and the other possibility still exists in its own world with its own observer (which is as real as our universe). Quantum mechanics is one of the key foundations of undergraduate degrees in Physics and indeed Chemistry, so having a basic conception of the essence of the theory is a great tool to have before you come to university.