Quantum_ Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - Manjit Kumar [0]
EINSTEIN, BOHR AND THE GREAT DEBATE ABOUT THE NATURE OF REALITY
MANJIT KUMAR
ICON BOOKS
Published in the UK in 2009 by
Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,
39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP
email: info@iconbooks.co.uk
www.iconbooks.co.uk
Previously published in the UK in 2008 by Icon Books
This electronic edition published in 2009 by Icon Books
ISBN: 978-1-84831-103-9 (ePub format)
ISBN: 978-1-84831-104-6 (BBeB format)
ISBN: 978-1-84831-105-3 (Adobe ebook format)
Printed edition (ISBN: 978-1-84831-035-3)
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Text copyright © 2009 Manjit Kumar
The author has asserted his moral rights.
Line drawings by Nick Halliday
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Typeset in Minion by Marie Doherty
For
Lahmber Ram and Gurmit Kaur
Pandora, Ravinder, and Jasvinder
Contents
List of illustrations vi
Prologue ix
PART I: THE QUANTUM 1
Chapter 1 The Reluctant Revolutionary 3
Chapter 2 The Patent Slave 31
Chapter 3 The Golden Dane 67
Chapter 4 The Quantum Atom 93
Chapter 5 When Einstein Met Bohr 117
Chapter 6 The Prince of Duality 143
PART II: BOY PHYSICS 155
Chapter 7 Spin Doctors 157
Chapter 8 The Quantum Magician 177
Chapter 9 'A Late Erotic Outburst' 201
Chapter 10 Uncertainty in Copenhagen 225
PART III: TITANS CLASH OVER REALITY 251
Chapter 11 Solvay 1927 253
Chapter 12 Einstein Forgets Relativity 281
Chapter 13 Quantum Reality 301
PART IV: DOES GOD PLAY DICE? 329
Chapter 14 For Whom Bell's Theorem Tolls 331
Chapter 15 The Quantum Demon 351
Timeline 361
Glossary 373
Notes 387
Bibliography 421
Acknowledgements 439
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IMAGES IN THE TEXT
Figure 1
The characteristics of a wave 6
Figure 2
Distribution of blackbody radiation showing Wien's displacement law 14
Figure 3
The photoelectric effect 51
Figure 4
Young's two-slits experiment 55
Figure 5
The periodic table 85
Figure 6
Some of the stationary states and corresponding energy levels of the hydrogen atom 100
Figure 7
Energy levels, line spectra and quantum jumps 103
Figure 8
Electron orbits for n=3 and k=1, 2, 3 in the Bohr-Sommerfeld model of the hydrogen atom 113
Figure 9
Standing waves of a string tethered at both ends 148
Figure 10
Standing electron waves in the quantum atom 148
Figure 11
A wave packet formed from the superposition of a group of waves 216
Figure 12
Determining the position of a wave but not the wavelength; measuring the wavelength but not the position 240
Figure 13
Einstein's single-slit thought experiment 263
Figure 14
Bohr's rendition of Einstein's single-slit thought experiment 264
Figure 15
Einstein's two-slits thought experiment 267
Figure 16
Bohr's design of a moveable first screen 269
Figure 17
Two-slit experiment with both slits open and with one slit closed 271
Figure 18
Bohr's rendition of Einstein's 1930s light box 284
About the author
Manjit Kumar has degrees in physics and philosophy. He was the founding editor of Prometheus, an interdisciplinary journal that covered the arts and sciences, described by one reviewer as 'perhaps the finest magazine that I've ever read'. He is the co-author of Science and the Retreat from Reason, which introduced key areas of modern science while defending the Enlightenment notions of social progress and scientific advance against the loss of faith in progress and science.