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Common sense tells us that matter doesn't
vanish into thin air, a particle and a wave have little
in common, and good knowledge leads to good prediction.
Yet when we move beyond the range of everyday experience
and into the world quantum physics, things prove to be very
different: particles of matter can be annihilated, waves
and particles are two faces of matter, and the outcome of
some experiments is completely unpredictable.
As Kenneth W. Ford shows in The Quantum
World, the laws governing the very small and the very
swift defy common sense and stretch our minds to the limit.
Drawing on a deep familiarity with the discoveries of the
twentieth century. Ford gives an appealing account of quantum
physics that will help the serious reader make sense of
a science that, for all its successes, remains mysterious.
He tells a good story while depicting both the subatomic
world and the world of physics research as lively places
populated by highly interesting characters. At the core
of this book are the "big ideas" of quantum physics,
including granularity (matter and some of its properties,
like energy, are "lumpy"), wave-particle duality,
the uncertainty principle, the nature of bosons and fermions,
and superposition and entanglement (an atom can be in two
or more states of motion at once).
With strikingly clear writing, and with
engaging illustrations by Paul Hewitt, The Quantum Worlds
imparts a sense of wonder and a knowledge of the strange
laws governing the atoms, nuclei, and fundamental particles
that inhabit the quantum world.
Kenneth W. Ford, retired director of
the American Institute of Physics, is coauthor of Geons,
Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics.
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