Distant galaxies, dark matter, black holes – elusive, incomprehensible and inhospitable – these are the building blocks of modern physics. But where do we fit in this picture? For centuries, we have separated mind from matter. While physicists have pursued a theory of ‘everything’ with single-minded purpose, the matter of the mind, of human consciousness, has been conveniently sidestepped and ignored – consigned to priests, philosophers and poets. With the ambition of Stephen Hawking, Carlo Rovelli and Brian Cox, Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation sets out a bold new vision for theoretical physics, unrestricted by sleek equations and neat formulations. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with the latest in quantum mechanics, acclaimed writer Musser offers a new interpretation of human consciousness. From bizarre cognitive phenomena, like lucid dreaming and self-taught synaesthesia, to the latest technological developments in AI, Musser asks: what can physics teach us about what it means to be human?

Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time: nonlocality - the ability of two particles to act in harmony no matter how far apart they may be. If space isn't what we thought it was, then what is it? In Spooky Action at a Distance, the award-winning journalist George Musser sets out to answer that question. He guides us on an epic journey into the lives of experimental physicists observing particles acting in tandem, astronomers finding galaxies that look statistically identical, and cosmologists hoping to unravel the paradoxes surrounding the big bang. He traces the contentious debates over nonlocality through major discoveries and disruptions of the twentieth century and shows how scientists faced with the same undisputed experimental evidence develop wildly different explanations for that evidence. Their conclusions challenge our understanding of the origins of the universe - and they suggest a new grand unified theory of physics.

This book surveys the science at a semipopular, Scientific American-level. It is even-handed with regard to competing directions of research and philosophical positions. It is hard to get even two people to agree on anything, yet a million billion water molecules can suddenly and abruptly coordinate to lock themselves into an ice crystal or liberate one another to billow outwards as steam. The marvelous self-organizing capacity of matter is one of the central and deepest puzzles of physics, with implications for all the natural sciences. Physicists in the past century have found a remarkable diversity of phases of matter-and equally remarkable commonalities within that diversity. The pace of discovery has, if anything, only quickened in recent years with the appreciation of quantum phases of matter and so-called topological order. The study of seemingly humdrum materials has made contact with the more exotic realm of quantum gravity, as theorists realize that the spacetime continuum may itself be a phase of some deeper and still unknown constituents. These developments flesh out the sometimes vague concept of the emergence-how exactly it is that complexity begets simplicity.