Una de las cosas que más disfruto de la divulgación en mi área (en la que supuestamente tengo una formación rigurosa en las técnicas y los conceptos fundamentales) son los detalles históricos sobre como surgieron y se desarrollaron las ideas. What is the crossover point between undetectable and detectable, blurry and certain? When does quantum behavior disappear in favor of the everyday, macroscopic reality we're used to? Can we "chain together" reality so tiny behaviors determine larger ones? That's the direct question Schrödinger's Cat raises.

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I think this book is meant for laypeople, you don't need to understand any equations, but even for an expert, I think having the history laid out like this, and told in such a personable voice, must be interesting and helpful. Physics was one subject i was never good at during High school (not that i was great at any of the other subjects though but Physics was a nightmare). There were concepts which were totally ambiguous to me and went way above my head. This book not only clarified some of them but also instilled in me a deep interest in Physics.This implies that the cat or anything in the box is a wave function accompanied by myriad ghost realities that will collapse into a single reality (dead or alive cat) when you decide to see it. Till then it is undead. It's unapologetically forthcoming, and NEVER tries to dumb down things in an effort towards becoming more "accommodating" and "plebian", which are the more euphemistic expressions for undervaluing the readers. Well, it wasn't as good as I remember it. Maybe it was the passage of time and the advancement of science, maybe it was my own further studies in the field, maybe it was own growth and change in preferences, or maybe I just things didn't notice the first time. Don't get me wrong; it's still good, and I don't regret having read through it, but Gribbin is certainly not the best writer out there on these subjects. I would recommend Brian Greene, but he always wants to throw a plug in for the wonders of string theory and how it will solve EVERY SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM EVER; IT WILL EVEN CURE CANCER AND OBESITY!!!! Even so, Greene's description of the basic science is unparalleled. If you want an introduction on these matters read the opening two-thirds of either of his books (The Elegant Universe or The Fabric of the Cosmos). It was, however, the final third that made me sit up, and read & re-read things, only to understand them. That part dealt with actual state of quantum theory, and needs considerable conceptual clarity, which is not so easy to muster at my stage.

Learning Gotcha: How We Misunderstood Schrödinger’s Cat Learning Gotcha: How We Misunderstood Schrödinger’s Cat

Si bien mucha agua ha pasado por el río de la física contemporánea desde el tiempo en el que el texto fue escrito (finales de los 80) los temas y las discusiones tienen una actualidad pasmosa que demuestra lo poco que realmente hemos avanzado en la comprensión de la teoría cuántica. Naturalmente la teoría cuántica moderna ha evolucionado, especialmente en las técnicas para su aplicación, en los sistemas a los que se aplica y en su poderoso rol en la tecnología, pero los problemas de fondo, las preguntas de fondo de las que se ocupa este librito siguen teniendo todavía mucha actualidad. Analogy: Just because a camera is out of focus doesn't mean things in the world are actually blurry Yes! He practically defined quantum reality. He left me in a box with a poison vial, a radioactive isotope, and a Geiger counter. If the counter detected any radioactivity, the poison vial would break and I would die. If it didn't, the vial would stay as it is and I would live." She beamed.An Elizabethan male dramatist (or female?), unbeknownst to himself succinctly put this --"To be or not to be". Amidst a plethora of books purportedly dealing with "explaining Quantum Theory to the layman" this book stands apart, as well as taller, by virtue of two qualities: - Philosophically, the issue reminds me of how we think about infinitely small quantities. Do infinitesimals exist? I scanned my bookshelves. Suddenly illumination lit up on me. "Bulgakov! The Master and Margarita!" I exclaimed.