Quantum : Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality

The first popular book to tell the story of the dramatic history of Quantum Theory. Without quantum theory the world we live in would not exist. Yet for sixty years most physicists accepted that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. This bizarre state of affairs led the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann to describe quantum theory as 'that mysterious, confusing discipline which none of us really understands but which we know how to use'. And use it we have. Without the quantum none of our computers, televisions or washing machines would work. Quantum theory drives the modern world. But despite the unprecedented success of quantum theory and the widespread fascination with quantum-inspired ideas, the origins of the quantum revolution remain largely unknown. "Quantum" will be the first popular book to tell the story of the dramatic history of quantum theory. In doing so it will show how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century. "Quantum" is not just the story of an era of scientific creativity unparalleled since the end of the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century. It is as much the story of the complex lives and personalities of the brilliant men behind quantum theory, whose work spanned a rich period of history, ranging from the late nineteenth century to the twentieth century and beyond.