Waubonsee Community College

Einstein's dice and Schrödinger's cat, how two great minds battled quantum randomness to create a unified theory of physics, Paul Halpern, PhD

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 237-240) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Einstein's dice and Schrödinger's cat

bibliography

889733751

Paul Halpern, PhD

how two great minds battled quantum randomness to create a unified theory of physics

Physicist Paul Halpern tells the little-known story of how Einstein and Schrödinger searched, first as collaborators and then as competitors, for a theory that transcended quantum weirdness. This story of their quest, which ultimately failed, provides readers with new insights into the history of physics and the lives and work of two scientists whose obsessions drove its progress. --Publisher's descriptionAlbert Einstein and Erwin Schrodinger were friends and comrades-in-arms against what they considered the most preposterous aspects of quantum physics: its indeterminacy. Einstein famously quipped that God does not play dice with the universe, and Schrodinger is equally well known for his thought experiment about the cat in the box who ends up spread out in a probabilistic state, neither wholly alive nor wholly dead. Both of these famous images arose from these two men's dissatisfaction with quantum weirdness and with their assertion that underneath it all, there must be some essentially deterministic world. Even though it was Einstein's own theories that made quantum mechanics possible, both he and Schrodinger could not bear the idea that the universe was, at its most fundamental level, random. As the Second World War raged, both men struggled to produce a theory that would describe in full the universe's ultimate design, first as collaborators, then as competitors. They both ultimately failed in their search for a Grand Unified Theory--not only because quantum mechanics is true, but because Einstein and Schrodinger were also missing a key component: of the four forces we recognize today (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, and the strong force), only gravity and electromagnetism were known at the time. Despite their failures, though, much of modern physics remains focused on the search for a Grand Unified Theory. As Halpern explains, the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson makes the Standard Model--the closest thing we have to a unified theory--nearly complete. And while Einstein and Schrodinger tried and failed to explain everything in the cosmos through pure geometry, the development of string theory has, in its own quantum way, brought this idea back into vogue. As in so many things, even when he was wrong, Einstein couldn't help but be right

Allies and adversaries -- The clockwork universe -- The crucible of gravity -- Matter waves and quantum jumps -- The quest for unification -- Spooky connections and zombie cats -- Luck of the Irish -- Physics by public relations -- The last waltz : Einstein's and Schrödinger's final years -- Beyond Einstein and Schrödinger : the ongoing search for unity