The Age of Entanglement

When Quantum Physics was Reborn

By: Louisa Gilder

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

A brilliantly original and richly illuminating exploration of entanglement, the seemingly telepathic communication between two separated particles - one of the fundamental concepts of quantum physics.

In 1935, in what would become the most cited of all of his papers, Albert Einstein showed that quantum mechanics predicted such a correlation, which he dubbed "spooky action at a distance."

In that same year, Erwin Schrödinger christened this spooky correlation "entanglement." Yet its existence wasn't firmly established until 1964, in a groundbreaking paper by the Irish physicist John Bell. What happened during those years and what has happened since to refine the understanding of this phenomenon is the fascinating story told here.

We move from a coffee shop in Zurich, where Einstein and Max von Laue discuss the madness of quantum theory, to a bar in Brazil, as David Bohm and Richard Feynman chat over cervejas. We travel to the campuses of American universities - from J. Robert Oppenheimer's Berkeley to the Princeton of Einstein and Bohm to Bell's Stanford sabbatical - and we visit centers of European physics: Copenhagen, home to Bohr's famous institute, and Munich, where Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli picnic on cheese and heady discussions of electron orbits.

Drawing on the papers, letters, and memoirs of the 20th century's greatest physicists, Louisa Gilder both humanizes and dramatizes the story by employing their own words in imagined face-to-face dialogues. Here are Bohr and Einstein clashing, and Heisenberg and Pauli deciding which mysteries to pursue. We see Schrödinger and Louis de Broglie pave the way for Bell, whose work here is given a long-overdue revisiting. And with his characteristic matter-of-fact eloquence, Richard Feynman challenges his contemporaries to make something of this entanglement.

In this stunning debut, Gilder has found a wholly original way of bringing to life a tale of physics in progress.

©2008 Louisa Gilder (P)2009 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"An admirable, unexpected audio book, historically sound and seamlessly constructed, that transports those of us who do not understand quantum mechanics into the lives and thoughts of those who did." (George Dyson, author of Darwin Among the Machines)

More history than explanation of quantum mechanisms

A very thorough history, almost moment by moment account of key figures in quantum mechanics, but, what it gains in story it loses in explanation. Light on laying out how quantum mechanics works. Depends on what you want out of it.

A Trek Through The History of Quantum Physics

Listening to how the ideas developed really gives you an insight into the personalities of the familiar characters in the world of Quantum Physicists and an appreciation that some of today's accepted dogma was highly controversial at the time it was proposed and split the community into believers and non-believers.

I really enjoyed the narration but I'm going to have to re-listen at least one more time as the gentle tones of the reader lulled me into sleep several times on my train commute and bedtime read.

Recommended.

Using historical development for understanding

A good historical survey of the early pioneers in quantum physics to "spooky action at a distance". I enjoyed this book but I had previously just read "Quantum" by Manjit Kumar who covers the early story slightly better. Later I ended up reading "How the Hippies Saved Physics" which covers the entanglement part better. The book is a good read especially if you haven't read the other two books.

Extremely interesting history of quantum physics

Where does The Age of Entanglement rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Great book! However, it's not for beginners. You need a background in quantum physics before listening. I have a particular interest in Bell's Theorem and entanglement, and that's the focus of this book. I listened to it with half an ear most of the time because I was also cooking or doing housework. However, I listened to it about 3 1/2 times through to fill in the sections I missed when I was distracted. The narrator does an excellent job. And learning about Bell's Theorem by hearing the conversations among physicists and excerpts of their letters brings the subject to life. And it was a real pleasure to get a better appreciation for the historic characters who played key roles in the development of quantum physics. Like I said, a great book!

It gets too much into details

Very extensive book, it is a biography of every physicist, telling his life and work, and the interaction between them. It is very interesting, but I found it a little too long.

Insightful and fulfilling

I only get to listen to an audio book whilst walking the dog. I found the book so fascinating and insightful that I was finding reasons to walk the dog more often. I enjoy leaning about quantum physics,but am not a history person. However the text was so cleverly written that I became captivated with the conversational style and getting a sense of who these personalities were. If you are into quantum physics, then you have to listen to this book to appreciate the historical struggle to make it accessible to us all. The narrator, Walter Dixon, does a great job of reading this title. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

BUTTERFLY EFFECT

In the mind of a three-year old, string can become tangled so string theory and The Age of Entanglement must have a relationship? Louisa Gilder does not include string theory in her book about entanglement but she suggests that matter and energy relate in ways that may make the butterfly effect a real as well as imagined truth.

Gilder cleverly delves into correspondence between physics legends like Einstein, Bohr, and later, John Bell and his contemporaries. Even though Bell is not Einstein’s and Bohr’s contemporary, Bell is a critical change agent in the ongoing argument begun by Einstein and Bohr about Quantum Theory. Bell changes quantum theory argument from a question of “if” to a question of “how” Quantum Theory is a valid construct of Physics.

Gilder reveals the humanness of the scientific community. She exposes the frustration and joy of discovery among scientists that think about the unknown and experiment with the unseen. The Age of Entanglement reveals the tensions that are created by strong beliefs and the utter devastation and human depression caused when beliefs are refuted by reproducible experiment.

Along the way Gilder explains entanglement; i.e. the idea that one minute quanta of existence affects other faraway elements of existence.

Fascinate story about how our understanding about quantum mechanics evolved.

The title says all. You need to listen to this story about physicists who shaped how the story about quantum mechanics was shaped. I always wondered why I don’t get satisfactory answers to my questions about quantum mechanics. I thought I’m the stupid one who does not understand while everybody else does.

A Tangle of Creative Insight

Louisa Gilder has written a book on the story of the discovery in physics that we live in a mysteriously entangled world... . The idea that has profound implications in all fields of study but importantly... including that taboo realm to 20th century science: the mind/spirit/material question that has enthralled humanity for millennia.

The author does not delve into the implications and throws some tonal cold water here and there on the idea... but still for me it was always part of the narrative.

In fact her book is about how very interesting personalities gradually over decades, faced the implications of the extra light speed "Entanglement" of particles that seemed to be inferred in the equations of Quantum Physics and how as time went on... John Bell and others described and suggested experiments to confirm what physics, by the authors story seemed to be willfully ignoring. He was met with resistance by some who didn't like the implications and intrigue by younger experimental physicists.

But this book is as much about the personalities behind the storied history of physics in the 20th century. Their interactions and creative competition, egos and interpersonal rivalries, playful even deeply affectionate regard are very well crafted.
Although their is some creative license that the author admits first thing to pull together from extensive reading of personal letters etc. how conversations very likely would have developed when no one was there but these second sources give a detailed if not completely quoted outline of what was indeed said.

In fact this is the strong point of the book... her familiarity with the issues at hand... that is the physics and the personalities involved and their often peculiar interactions on the historical stage... drawn together with conversations that may or may not have happened as written. One senses that her efforts are close to the truth and that she has little decernable prejudice, funny and wise, even touching.

This is a very interesting story about quantum physics and the people who brought quantum physics to where it is today.

This book does an excellent job of showing how John Bell, Heisenberg, and Dirac and many others played their necessary parts in uncovering the mystery of quantum physics and the world of small particles.