PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Jim Baggott is an award-winning science writer. He trained as a scientist at the University of Oxford before embarking on post-doctoral research studies at Oxford and at Stanford University in California. He gave up a tenured lectureship at the University of Reading after five years in order to gain experience in the commercial world. He worked for Shell International Petroleum for 11 years before leaving to establish his own business consultancy and training practice. Jim's many books include Quantum Space (OUP, 2018), Mass (OUP, 2017), Origins (OUP, 2015), Higgs (OUP, 2012), The Quantum Story (OUP, 2011), and A Beginner's Guide to Reality (Penguin, 2005).
An engaging tour of the mysteries of quantum mechanics and the controversies of its interpretation, with the rare bonus of some substantial and well-grounded philosophy of science, synthesised from Baggott's wealth of knowledge and experience. * Jon Butterworth, author of A Map of the Invisible * Jim Baggott has written a highly readable, fair-minded and well-researched account of the ongoing debate about the nature of quantum reality. Amongst popular accounts of the subject, it is the most accessible and enlightening one I have come across. * Harvey R. Brown, Philosopher of Physics and author of Physical Relativity: Space-time structure from a dynamical perspective * Jim Baggott proves once again to be a master popularizer, this time investigating with wit, depth, very wide angle, and remarkable equilibrium, what is perhaps the most obscure and fascinating mystery of modern science: what does quantum theory tell us about the world? * Carlo Rovelli, author of The Order of Time and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics * This is a superb book. Indeed it is the book I wish I had read when I was an undergraduate student in philosophy of science, keen to understand the philosophical implications of various interpretations of quantum mechanics. Jim Baggott has set for himself a very ambitious task: namely, to unpack the realist commitments at stake in the century-long debate on the completeness (or incompleteness) of quantum mechanics that began with Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein in the 1920s-1930s. It is rare to find this level of philosophical engagement with thorny foundational issues among physicists writing popular science books... This book is sheer joy to read. * Michela Massimi, Philosopher of Science and editor of Philosophy and the Sciences for Everyone * ... I highly recommend it... Baggott provides a refreshingly sane and sensible survey of the subject... In Quantum Reality, Baggott provides a well-informed, reliable and enlightening tour of the increasingly complex and contentious terrain of arguments over what our best fundamental theory is telling us about what is physically real . * Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong * Quantum Reality is... an attempt to bring order to a confounding subject. He succeeds only partly. But even that is a remarkable achievement because, for almost a century, physicists have fought over just which of over a dozen different interpretations of quantum mechanics is correct, or what it even means to call one of them correct. ... Engagingly written, and requiring no background knowledge in physics, it is likely to teach you something new. Even I learned some new bits... * Sabine Hossen, Nautilus * Here, former experimental physicist Jim Baggott says quantum mechanics is completely mad , but wrestles expertly with its history and current state, integrating physics with metaphysics. * Andrew Robinson, Nature *
