Description: "Physicists have grappled with quantum theory for over a century. They have learned to wring precise answers from the theory's governing equations, and no experiment to date has found compelling evidence to contradict it. Even so, the conceptual apparatus remains stubbornly, famously bizarre. Physicists have tackled these conceptual uncertainties while navigating still larger ones: the rise of fascism, cataclysmic world wars and a new nuclear age, an unsteady Cold War stand-off and its unexpected end. Quantum Legacies introduces readers to physics' still-unfolding quest by treating iconic moments of discovery and debate among well-known figures like Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrèodinger, and Stephen Hawking, and many others whose contributions have indelibly shaped our understanding of nature"--
Brief description: David Kaiser is the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of several books, including How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival, and is coeditor of Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Review Quotes: "It's [Kaiser's] careful analysis of physics's sociological aspects that makes Quantum Legacies a delightful read. . . . This is the kind of material that you won't find in other books on the history and philosophy of physics."--Ash Jogalekar "The Curious Wavefunction"