Popular Science Review - Quantum Reality

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Review - Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics - Nick Herbert

I did my best to like this book, but failed.

Conceptually it has lots of promise. Quantum theory isn't just a very practical scientific theory that is superbly well matched to observed effects. Once you get past what results you expect to what lies beneath those results, it's a heaving can of worms with many different interpretations. Are we wrong, as the conventional Copenhagen interpretation says, to even try to ascribe reality to the unobserved moment-by-moment existence of things like electrons and photons, or do they have real existence that we just can't ever measure? Are quantum effects produced by the universe splitting off a new copy every time a decision is made, or does each particle have a pilot wave controlling it and guiding it that is in instant touch with the rest of the universe? It's enough to give anyone a headache, and this is what Herbert sets out to cure.

Unfortunately, reading this book only worsens the headache. The writing lacks any spark, the presentation is confusing and Nick Herbert veers between vague generalizations - he can cover several pages with woffle that says very little - and too much detail to be taken in. All along the way it's easy to bounce of the stilted prose. Often Herbert's example and analogies and made up terms seem almost deliberately confusing - they tend to be harder to get a grasp of than the aspect of quantum theory they are supposed to illustrate. It is just too much hard work to read this book. It might seem that this is because quantum theory is so bizarre, but it's not. It's the book.

In part, it's true, the problem is that the reason the topic of "what lies beneath" is so contentious in quantum theory is that no one really has a clue, so it's a whole book full of ideas that seem a little like fishing in the dark. Really this is more a subject for philosophers than scientists - until and unless there is some way of experimentally distinguishing the theories (almost universally painful theories), you might as well stick a pin in the list and get on with life.

Okay, the author warns us. The sub-subtitle is "An excursion into metaphysics". But this was one journey I could have done without.

Also in hardback:

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

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