The discovery of the quantum the idea, born in the early 1900s in a
remote corner of physics, that energy comes in finite packets
instead of infinitely divisible quantities planted a rich set of
metaphors in the popular imagination.
Quantum imagery and language now bombard us like an endless
stream of photons. Phrases such as multiverses, quantum leaps,
alternate universes, the uncertainty principle, and Schrodinger's
cat get reinvented continually in cartoons and movies, coffee mugs
and T-shirts, and fiction and philosophy, reinterpreted by each new
generation of artists and writers.
Is a "quantum leap" big or small? How uncertain is the
uncertainty principle? Is this barrage of quantum vocabulary
pretentious and wacky, or a fundamental shift in the way we
think?
All the above, say Robert P. Crease and Alfred Scharff Goldhaber
in this pathbreaking book. The authors one a philosopher, the other
a physicist draw on their training and six years of co-teaching to
dramatize the quantum s rocky path from scientific theory to public
understanding. Together, they and their students explored missteps
and mistranslations, jokes and gibberish, of public discussion
about the quantum. Their book explores the quantum s manifestations
in everything from art and sculpture to the prose of John Updike
and David Foster Wallace. The authors reveal the quantum s
implications for knowledge, metaphor, intellectual exchange, and
the contemporary world. Understanding and appreciating quantum
language and imagery, and recognizing its misuse, is part of what
it means to be an educated person today.
The result is a celebration of language at the interface of
physics and culture, perfect for anyone drawn to the infinite
variety of ideas."
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