Simply Quantum Physics
IF YOU DON’T LOOK, IT DOESN’T EXIST
Author: DK
Publisher: DK
Price: £9.99 / $12.59 Release: Out now
Protons, neutrons, gluons, beta decay, waveparticle duality, Planck’s constant, Schrödinger’s cat – there’s nothing simple about quantum physics whatsoever. We can’t even see the particles (or waves?) it describes with our naked eye because things at a quantum level are billions of times narrower than the width of a human hair. Our most powerful light microscopes can’t even get close to resolving an image of an atomic nuclei, so the only way we can observe something as small as that is with a device that fires other subatomic particles at it – an electron microscope. And we still don’t really understand why Schrödinger’s cat is both dead and alive, though it does make sense that it would climb into a deadly radioactive box… cats love boxes after all.
It sounds like the authors of Simply Quantum Physics have set themselves an incomprehensible task. But they’ve done a stellar job here, all the while resisting the temptation to fill the pages with hefty terminology and mind-bending thought experiments. It starts with a little bit of history and an eye-popping scale with a length so small we don’t have enough space on the rest of this page to fit all the zeros in, then suddenly we’re completely engaged.
There isn’t much frame of reference to explain to people who aren’t quantum physicists how this strange world works, so here the authors use history, physical laws that will be more familiar to the reader – Newton’s law of motion, for example – and a slew of simple graphics. The familiar technologies that have emerged from quantum physics, including the electronics in sophisticated timekeeping devices and, of course, quantum computers, aren't dealt with until we’re long past the basic principles. But when you’ve got weird and wonderful phenomena like quantum entanglement – where pairs of particles match each other’s state no matter how far apart they are – and the theory of parallel universes to read about, satellites and microchips seem less exciting.
Unsurprisingly, we wouldn’t recommend this book for primary school children, unless they’re remarkably bright. But anyone interested in the crazy world of quantum physics from middle school-age upwards might enjoy giving Simply Quantum Physics a shot.
We still don’t really understand why Schrödinger’s cat is both dead and alive
Author: Jack Challoner Publisher: MIT Press Price: £29.05 / $39.95 Release: 31 August
Challoner leaves no stone unturned in this homage to water. From its cosmic origins to its cellular importance today, he explores this varied world. Water leans more on the side of a textbook, meaning that its content is very much rooted in offering scientific insight, rather than a popular science narrative. That being said, the way Challoner has structured the story of water flows nicely from its origins and the study of its chemical properties and abilities, to how this tiny molecule entirely defines life on our planet.
The illustrations throughout are a welcome visualisation of the more complex scientific principles, such as the bonds that form the shape of water. There is also some stunning imagery included, such as scenes from the Hon Khoi Salt Fields in Vietnam, or angular snowflakes under the microscope. All in all, this is a great addition to the library of any student or academic mind looking to sharpen their knowledge about the most abundant molecule on Earth.
The story of water flows nicely from its origins