like trying to explain quantum theory to an English major

[snugglekitty]

I've been reading bits and pieces of this book, Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experience in Quantum Reality, which is principally about psychic phenomena. It has a brief chapter on quantum theory, but I'm pretty sure I didn't understand. In particular, the thing about the three boxes* - the book said that when you understand it, it makes your stomach drop. Well then, I'm pretty sure I didn't understand it. While I recognize that this experience may be common to the field, I'm hoping to get suggestions of things I might try to at least refine my grasp of my incomprehension.

In short - can you recommend a book, or books, about quantum theory? The ideal text will be readable, without the help of a professor, to someone who has never taken a physics class in her whole life. (That would be me.) Yes, I was able to get through A Brief History of the Universe if that helps. What I really want is The Cartoon Guide to Quantum Theory or Quantum Theory for Dummies but apparently neither of those books have been written, which I think is shameful.

*There are three boxes. One of them shoots entangled particles in two different directions, into two more boxes. Each of the other two boxes has two lights, one of which is red and the other green, and three settings. When you shoot entangled particles into them, the lights are the same color 55.5% of the time instead of 50% of the time, and apparently that should blow all of our minds. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, I didn't get it either.

Comments

[teratomarty.livejournal.com]

The most cogent explanation of quantum physics that I've ever read was in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams. It's a novel.

The thing about the boxes and the stomach dropping... sounds like incipient schizophrenia. The point that the author is probably trying to make is that these "entangled particles" alter the statistical probability of synchronicity. If we're talking about actual boxes, lights and particles here, I would have some very specific questions about experiment design.

citation

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Hey, I read that book! I'll have to read it again. :)

The scenario in my original post, with the lights and the boxes, is supposedly a "nontechnical" explanation of something called Bell's theorem. The citation in the back of the book is as follows:

Mermin. N. D. (1985). Is the moon there when nobody looks? Reality and the Quantum Theory. Physics Today, April 1985, 38-47.

It may be woo-woo, but at least the damned thing has footnotes. :)

Here's a link to the actual article, which I'm going to try reading but I suspect was probably written for physicists:

http://www.physics.iitm.ac.in/~arvind/ph350/mermin.pdf

If you get anything out of it, let me know?

Re: citation

[katkt.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia has an extensive entry on Bell's Theorem. I don't have time right now to try to digest it all, though.

[katkt.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a thought experiment designed to illuminate, rather than an actual experiment.

That sounds interesting and I'd like to understand it, but the web was suprisingly unhelpful.

[bob-eldritch.livejournal.com]

There is actually a a very clear and simple cartoon quide to quantum theory called Introducing Quantum Theory by J. P. McEvoy and Oscar Zarate.

Although it should be remembered that probably the cleverest physicist after Einstein and Nobel Prize winning quantum physics specialist Richard Feynmam always insisted that nobody understands quantum mechanics. That is, physicists can understand the mathenatical formalism of quantum physics and may even be able to mske new and testable predictions. But none of them knows "how it can be that way".

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Hey, awesome! Thanks for telling me. I had thought that looked like a textbook, based on the cover (which I saw on Amazon). I have requested it from the library, and hopefully it will give me a better grasp of the facts as they have upset classical physics.

I realized already the part about no one knowing "how it can be that way." I actually kind of like it that there are mysteries we haven't solved yet.

Thanks for stopping by with such a useful comment!

[bob-eldritch.livejournal.com]

Aw shucks, that's OK, Betty Noir, most gracious Lady anemone of the sea.

Long ago I began to have the inkling that the experimental findings of quantum physics could conceal the most profound mysteries of them all.

And then back in 1983, after reading about a quantum physics experiment in a science journal, I began to find reasons to believe that there is a way of understanding quantum mechanics, But the trouble is, this is not a way that any physicist is likely to discover nor is likely to think possible nor, necessarily, want to believe is true.

Although I can insist that this method of discovery is pretty much like Isaac Newton's. So no-one could understand how the orbital motion of moons and planets was possible could be that way until enough evidence was considered together of the different kinds of effect of an invisible cause and means were found for describing enough details of this cause that was called gravity. And a cause was thus shown to act where before it could be thought there was nothing in the world.

So I say quantum mechanics, as well as much else about how the universe that includes life on Earth is the way that it is, can be discovered by considering enough natural and experimental evidence together with that of quantum physics so as to justify and describe enough details of another universal and invisible cause but that acts in addition to and in a quite differnt way to all the forces.

But then you'd have to take my word for it because I'm not even a qualified physicist and I haven't found an account like my hypothesis anywhere on the internet or elsewhere

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

I began to find reasons to believe that there is a way of understanding quantum mechanics, But the trouble is, this is not a way that any physicist is likely to discover nor is likely to think possible nor, necessarily, want to believe is true.

I don't know what your hypothesis is, but this seems like a reasonable idea in general. I think that most things can be understood, given enough time and enough data.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

My husband the former physicist tried to explain quantum mechanics to me once, and at the end of the explanation, I clutched my head, looked at him accusingly, and said, "My brain hurts!" He looked pleased and said, "Oh, good, that means you understand it then!"

No stomach drop was involved. :-)

[chris-brigham.livejournal.com]

US$0.02:

If you really wish to explore quantum mechanics, I hope you are not too discouraged by your reaction to Bell's theorem, which is only one relatively ancillary story among dozens.  Presumably you would not swear off science fiction, for example, because you didn't like a certain author; you might even like other authors of that movement.  It's just a matter of finding the right intellectual chemistry.  I am actually impressed that you made it through the later chapters of Hawking's book, which I think assumes a much stiffer mathematical background than he says it does.  (Black Holes and Baby Universes is better, but IIRC does not involve a lot of quantum mechanics).

As with many other physicists, my experience of quantum mechanics is that it resembles nothing so much as religion:
- individual seekers, if they are being honest, tend to have experiences that are more different than alike;
- your specific interpretations say much more about you than about the "outside world" you are nominally describing;
- in the populace at large, going through the motions (in this case doing math) is far more common than actually having had a spiritual awakening, and a professional practice doesn't necessarily fix that.

The following pieces of quantum mechanics research have all led to the Nobel Prize in physics:
- Louis de Broglie spending week after week on the Italian Riviera, a bottle of pills by his side, until suddenly his thesis topic came to him in a vision;
- Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson scraping bird droppings off a satellite antenna for 18 months (the analogy here is to monks in old Japanese movies who take a vow of silence and then walk up and down mountains day after day, eating only plain rice);
- Donald Glaser with his head on a bar, mesmerized by the bubbles moving around in his glass of beer;
- Richard Feynman developing a theory of light-matter interaction while watching a food fight in the school cafeteria.

So, listen to many different teachers until you find one who stirs you, and try to set aside time for digestion and not just for reading, and remember that insights about the "outside world" may turn out to be very indirect (like, say, consulting Lao-Tzu for tax advice).

Having said all that, I'm not sure I have a definite recommendation for your reading list.  Mermin is actually very good at explaining physics in a right-brain, even artistic manner, and I believe he has published one or two compilations of Physics Today essays, but of course such a book is not a connected narrative and would also discuss many other aspects of physics.  I might also suggest Nick Herbert's Quantum Reality: Behind the New Physics, mostly because I rejected it vehemently at the time for being too heuristic and diagrammatic.   :>     And of course untold millions have reported enlightenment after reading John Gribbin (any book, but especially In Search of Schrödinger's Cat), though I myself would award him no medals for English composition.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm so glad you saw this post! I wondered what you might have to say if you wandered by. I read your comment carefully. I think that in general science is more like religion than most scientists would like us to admit. Scientists may be the priests but most folks just worship science casually, without understanding it very well...

I will check out the references you suggest once I'm done with the ones I've already checked out. :)