
Spooky Action at a Distance
The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time--and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything
George Musser(Author)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc (Publisher)
Published on 15. November 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-374-53661-9 (ISBN)
Description
Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time: nonlocality - the ability of two particles to act in harmony no matter how far apart they may be. If space isn't what we thought it was, then what is it? In Spooky Action at a Distance, the award-winning journalist George Musser sets out to answer that question. He guides us on an epic journey into the lives of experimental physicists observing particles acting in tandem, astronomers finding galaxies that look statistically identical, and cosmologists hoping to unravel the paradoxes surrounding the big bang. He traces the contentious debates over nonlocality through major discoveries and disruptions of the twentieth century and shows how scientists faced with the same undisputed experimental evidence develop wildly different explanations for that evidence. Their conclusions challenge our understanding of the origins of the universe - and they suggest a new grand unified theory of physics.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
13 Black-and-White Illustrations, 2 Tables / Notes, Bibliography, Index
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 139 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
268 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-374-53661-9 (9780374536619)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
George Musser is an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor for Scientific American, and the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory. He is the recipient of a Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award from the American Astronomical Society and an American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award for Science Writing. He was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and has appeared on Today, CNN, NPR, the BBC, Al Jazeera, and other outlets. He lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his wife and daughter.
Content
Introduction: Einstein's Castle in the Air
1. The Many Varieties of Nonlocality
2. The Origins of Nonlocality
3. Einstein's Locality
4. The Great Debate
5. Nonlocality and the Unification of Physics
6. Spacetime Is Doomed
Conclusion: The Amplituhedron
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index