Erwin Schrodinger and the Quantum Revolution
By John GribbinPublisher Description
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction: It's Not Rocket Science 1
1 Nineteenth-Century Boy 7
Antecedents
Early years
An empire's last hurrah
Scientific stirrings
From schoolboy to undergraduate
2 Physics before Schrodinger 22
Newton and the world of particles
Maxwell and the world of waves
Boltzmann and the world of statistics
3 Twentieth-Century Man 44
Student life
Life beyond the lab
War service on the Italian front
Back to Vienna
The aftermath
The peripatetic professor
4 The First Quantum Revolution 67
When black bodies are bright
Enter the quantum
The quantum becomes real
Inside the atom
Tripping the light fantastic
Einstein again
5 Solid Swiss Respectability 91
The university and the ETH
Personal problems and scientific progress
Physics and philosophy
Life and love
My world view
Quantum statistics
6 Matrix Mechanics 112
Half-truths
What you see is what you get
Matrices don?t commute
Justice isn't always done
7 Schrodinger and the Second Quantum Revolution 124
Science and sensuality
Riding the wave
A quantum of uncertainty
The Copenhagen consensus
8 The Big Time in Berlin 148
Making waves in America
Berlin and Brussels
The golden years
Back to the future
People and politics
9 The Coming of the Quantum Cat 172
Back in the USA
Oxford and beyond
Faster than light
The cat in the box
From Oxford with love
10 There, and Back Again 187
Whistling in the dark
Reality bites
The unhappy return
Belgian interlude
11 The happiest years of my life? 201
Dev
Settling in
Early days at the DIAS
Family
Life in Dublin
The post-war years
Many worlds
12 What is Life? 224
Life itself
Quantum chemistry
The green pamphlet
Schrodinger's variation on the theme
The double helix
13 Back to Vienna 243
Farewell to Dublin
Home is the hero
Declining years
The triumph of entropy
14 Schrodinger's Scientific Legacy 259
Hidden reality and a mathematician's mistake
The Bell test and the Aspect experiment
Quantum cryptography and the no cloning theorem
Quantum teleportation and classical information
The quantum computer and the Multiverse
Quantum physics and reality
Postscript: Quantum Generations 285
Notes 291
Sources and Further Reading 297
Picture Acknowledgements 305
Index 307
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities1 Review
todd
Created 6 months agoAbout John Gribbin
JOHN GRIBBIN is one of today's most successful and prolific writers of popular science. He is the author of bestselling books, including In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, In Search of the Multiverse, and Alone in the Universe. He trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is currently a Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.
Other books by John Gribbin
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
Similar Books
