Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different

This is a review of the Kindle edition of “Beyond Weird”, the format was easy to read. The book comes with a comprehensive bibliography which appears to be useful. It also has a good index. I imagine that the book will appeal to students and educated laymen alike. I found it absorbing and interesting. Hence the 5 stars. I will be rereading it and following up on some items in the bibliography. Firstly, this is not about how quantum mechanics is weirder than you ever thought. If you don’t know quantum mechanics (QM) is weird, it would be a good idea to introduce yourself to the history of the subject; you will see why It has this reputation. Neither is this a book from which you might teach yourself QM. You should seek out another if that is what you need. The book contains no mathematics or equations. It is an ideas book in which Ball provides the reader with an excellent account of the state of play as of 2018. I use the words “complex Hilbert space” in a quote from the book below. It is neither necessary to know what a complex Hilbert space is to read the book (or understand my review!) nor is it the case that if you know what this is then the book is a waste of time for you. Bohr and Einstein could not agree on what, if any reality underlay QM. It may be tempting (justifiably so) to give up, abandon further inquiry and dismiss QM as “weird”. After all, it remains true that attending “any meeting about the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics is like being in a holy city in great tumult. You will find all the religions with all their priests pitted in holy war”. The priests agree on the foundational scriptures, but they diverge on the interpretation. The experts are not of one mind. Ball invites us to go “Beyond” our concern with weirdness and bring ourselves up to date with current thinking about what the theory means. What underlying reality if any, does Schrödinger’s equation describe or even hint at? Paradoxes which have illuminated difficulties with the subject have been with us for many years. Schrödinger's Cat (is it, could it be, both dead and alive?) and the EPR paradox (does “quantum entanglement” entail instantaneous action at a distance, breaking relativity?) are amongst the conceptually difficult ideas tackled here. Interpretations of QM are explained and evaluated. We are taken through Bohr's (the Schrödinger equation tells us all that can be known) Everett and Deutsch's (many worlds interpretation), Qbism (an even stronger reliance Schrödinger than Bohr) and others. Currently, attempts are being made to find satisfying axiomatic foundations; some are described here. The motivation behind this can be appreciated if we compare an example of a “standard” set for QM like: “1. For every system there is a complex Hilbert space H. 2. States of the system correspond to projection operators onto H. 3. Those things that are observable somehow correspond to the eigenprojectors of Hermitian operators. 4. Isolated systems evolve according to the Schrödinger equation.” with the laws of motion underlying Newtonian mechanics: “1. Every object keeps moving at the same speed if no force is applied to it. If it is still to begin with, it stays still. 2. If a force is applied to an object, it accelerates in direct proportion to that force, and in the direction of that force.” 3. For every force that one body exerts on another, the other body exerts an equal force back in the opposite direction.” Ball points out that given the difference in the language in the two sets of axioms, it is not surprising that there is a push for a quantum reconstruction. He describes an informational approach to QM and why it is seen as potentially fruitful given the peculiarities and limitations of types of information available from quantum systems. I get the impression that the informational approach is his favourite. A substantial minority of practitioners in the field still favour Bohr's view. Ball is harshest with the many worlds interpretation. To repeat, I found this to be an excellent survey which has equiped me to venture deeper into the alleyways of that tumultuous city, listen to the priests and perhaps form an opinion of my own on the merits of their competing interpretations.

I very much enjoyed the book; it was well researched and well written. What I didn’t like was that Ball failed to consider what I believe to be the best explanation for the seeming weirdness of quantum mechanics: Experimental data is being interpreted within the overly simplistic context of materialism/physicalism rather than within the context of Platonic realism. Admittedly materialism/physicalism is by far and away the most popular ontology (worldview) among scientists and philosophers of science. While it might not seem reasonable to replace materialism/physicalism based solely on the explanatory challenges posed by quantum mechanics there are a number of other explanatory challenges in other fields that might justify a new ontology. For example, on page 124 Ball writes: “Sure, you can ask questions about what is ‘really going on’, or about the mind-body problem or free will - but these are issues for philosophy, not physics.” Is it not possible that the mind-body problem and free will go unresolved because they are impossible to resolve within the context of materialism/physicalism? I would maintain that a new ontology should address as many outstanding explanatory challenges as possible with the minimum number of ontological commitments. It must also include falsification and/or verification criteria if it is to have any chance of being accepted by the greater scientific community. While not mentioned by Ball, the fields of medicine and experimental psychology also face difficult explanatory challenges. For 75 years placebo testing has been a required component of all drug trials. How it works is unknown but the consensus is that it does work. In experimental psychology a 2011 paper by Daryl Bem demonstrated the reality of precognition; his work has since been replicated by other labs. Retrocausation (an event in the future being the source of information received in the present) has been put forth as an explanation by defenders of materialism/physicalism. In subsequent research (Mossbridge and Ridan, 2018) it was shown that precognitive information is not about the future but about the most probable future. If retrocausation is to explain probabilistic precognition it would mean that an event that might not even take place in the future was the source of the precognitive information that was received in the present - this strikes me as magical thinking. The most basic question that an ontology must address is: How many realms are there? While Occam’s razor would suggest that “one” would be the best answer I would maintain that our shared reality is of such complexity that a single realm is not adequate to address all explanatory challenges. What views of reality are evinced by the scientific data? I maintain that science evinces at least three separate and distinct views of reality: 1. The data associated with classical physics evinces a macro view of reality that is characterized by determinism. 2. The data associated with quantum physics evinces a micro view of reality that is characterized by indeterminism. 3. The data associated with the social sciences evinces multiple concurrent mental views of reality characterized by both self awareness and self determination. It is difficult to explain how a single realm could give rise to all three views of reality; assigning each view to its own ontological realm would seem to be an option worth considering. This is exactly what Platonic realism does: the macro view can be attributed to Plato’s realm of being; the micro view can be attributed to Plato’s realm of becoming; the mental views can be attributed to Plato’s realm of the soul. While Plato’s writings in and of themselves are clearly not adequate to address the explanatory requirements of modern science I believe that they can provide a foundation on which the ideas of others may be interpreted. One such idea can be found in a 1989 paper by John Archibald Wheeler titled "Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search For Links" where Wheeler wrote: "To endlessness no alternative is evident but loop, such a loop as this: Physics gives rise to observer-participancy; observer-participancy gives rise to information; and information gives rise to physics." (pp. 313-314) While Wheeler intended that this process be grounded by materialism/physicalism, I do not see materialism/physicalism as being adequate for the following reasons: 1. The information needed to give rise to physics is not to be found in the natural universe. 2. The mechanism for consolidating the observer-participants input is not to be found in the natural universe. When interpreted within the context of Platonic realism, however, both of these can be said to reside in Plato’s expanded realm of being. In Plato’s ontology it is the demiurge that is said to give rise to the physical universe. Could this not be consistent with a process in the realm of being that reifies a digital image stored in the realm of being so as to create a new instance of the universe in the realm of becoming? In this Platonic interpretation of quantum mechanics the laws of classical physics would be said to describe processing within the realm of being whereas quantum theory would be said to describe the natural universe (the realm of becoming). This would in turn give rise to the startling conclusion that gravity is not a force in the natural universe but rather an algorithm in the realm of being. Should this be the case it would mean that: 1. There will never be a fully satisfactory theory of quantum gravity for the simple reasons that quantum gravity does not exist. 2. The graviton will never be detected because quantum gravity does not exist. 3. The weak interactive massive particle (WIMP) will never be detected because dark matter does not exist. 4. The hierarchy problem in particle physics does not exist. How does this enhanced Platonic realism address the explanatory challenges posed by the placebo effect and probabilistic precognition? The placebo effect requires one to explain how the mind can be the cause of changes to the body. In my proposed enhanced Platonic realism it is information that flows from the mind (located in the realm of the soul) to the realm of being where it causes the reification process to select a different digital image of the universe for subsequent reification. Probabilistic precognition is explained by the presence in the realm of being of multiple digital images of the universe - only a proper subset of which are ever selected for reification.

I found Philip Ball's book to be an excellent discussion of how difficult it is to reconcile QM with our ordinary perception of the physical world and classical physics. If you're like me and have read many different interpretations of QM from non-physicists you'll quickly realize how much stranger QM is than you've been led to believe. It's not that our conscious awareness creates reality, but that reality seemingly has no definite shape apart from our interaction with it. The author covers the different interpretations of QM and show's them all too insufficient in explaining how and why it works. But you'll definitely get an appreciation of how diabolically challenging it is to get a grasp of exactly what makes QM work. Basically, no one knows. Ball is extremely thorough in dismantling all your previous ideas about the subject. Now personally, I've been fascinated by the Everettian "Many Worlds" approach, and an even newer multiverse paradigm called the "Many Interacting Worlds" model, pioneered by Howard Wiseman, Andre Deckert, and Michael Hall, which models how parallel realities can interact in complete agreement with existing QM results. Ball is none too kind to these type of ideas, he devotes a whole chapter to taking Everett''s Many Worlds model apart. While I don't agree with all his counter- arguments, he's asking the right questions, like what is nature of consciousness? At least he's taking the Many Worlds approaches seriously even if he completely rejects them. I was particularly fascinated by Ball’s discussion of Heisenberg and the ‘uncertainty’ principle. Apparently, this idea has not been presented properly in part due to Heisenberg’s lack of understanding of how microscopes work. It’s not so much uncertainty as and ‘undecided principle.” Ball explains that the more you know of a particle's position, the less you know about its momentum, not for experimental reasons but because these “conjugate variables” do not work by commutative math! It's similar to a cooking recipe where the order you add the ingredients affects the final flavor. So "uncertainty" is a mathematical issue, not an observational one and even Bohr didn’t explain it properly. Again, the main point is that quantum properties are never totally available to us at once: the more you know of one, the less the other. And ever towering figures like Heisenberg made mistakes that still linger in our thinking about QM. Ball is an advocate of so-called "Quantum Reconstruction", a complete reformulation of QM. He personally favors an information-based approach but he even finds this idea limiting. So in the end, he doesn't show us what direction to take beyond a few generalities, but shows us we need to get going there anyway. So we can say that he's getting the ball rolling (pun intended). As a corollary to this book, you'll also enjoy Adam Becker's book What is Real? . I'd also recommend Sean Caroll's Something Deeply Hidden for a completely opposing view of the viability of Everett's Many Worlds' Interpretation. (Dr. Simeon Hein is the author of Black Swan Ghosts: A sociologist encounters witnesses to unexplained aerial craft, their occupants, and other elements of the multiverse , Opening Minds: A Journey of Extraordinary Encounters, Crop Circles, and Resonance , and Planetary Intelligence: 101 Easy Steps to Energy, Well Being, and Natural Insight. )

I last took Modern Physics in college in 1978. I always was uncomfortable with the Copenhagen Interpretation--the necessity of an observer to "collapse the wave function" and everything stays in superposition until observed. One of the new interpretations is the Many-Worlds one where each superposition "state" happens, but in a different universe. I can't say that this one is very appealing to my sense of what makes sense to me personally--not that the world needs to make sense. What I found very appealing is the discussion of all the experimentation that has occurred since the 70's and 80's. For example, finally being able to experimentally test Bell's Theorem--and it violating the inequality proving that there are not local variables. Essentially, it disproves locality--that all of the properties of an object are contained locally (where that relates to the speed of light limit). There is great synergy between theory and experiments and as the experiments have gotten more precise, that has spawned more thoughts about the theory. Two quantum states that can be in superposition to each other only do so when the individual wavefunctions are coherent to each other--and so the superposition wavefunction must be computed instead. Observing always causes the superposition of states to collapse to a single one (with probabilities as to which state as predicted by the superposition wavefunction). This lead Bohr to state that it is the act of observing that ends the superposition. This raises the question of what sort of observer is required? Before there was life to observe, what happened? In Schrodengier's example with his cat thought experiment, can a macroscopic object such as a cat really be in superposition of "alive" and "dead" if we don't observe the result? This leads to what is starting to make sense to me: decoherence. If the two "states" that are in superposition don't stay coherent, then they cannot stay in superposition. An observation involves a massive interaction with the larger environment such that the quantum-ness is now spread out too much for those two independent states to stay coherent. As a result, an observation always collapsed the superpostion, but any interaction with the environment will decrease the coherence (and hence, amount of superposition). There have been recent experiments that can control the rate of decoherence based on amount of environmental interaction and everything behaves as the quantum math predicts. I enjoyed this very much. I've had exposure to the subject before (although not to the point of covering any of the quantum math details), so I can't be sure, but I think this is at a level that anyone with a strong interest in science would follow.

Among all intellectual matters, the interpretation of quantum mechanics is for me the most interesting subject there is. This was true when I studied physics, which I left for a different career in part because I care very much about what QM means (kind of the point of learning physics) but discovered that ‘shut up and calculate’ was the standard interpretation when I went in school in the ‘70s. Yet the subject remains so compelling that I’ve spent a lot of time during the last 25 years keeping up. Now that the foundations of quantum theory are a reputable subject, there is a lot of literature to study in addition to popularizations like Beyond Weird. One interesting thing about quantum interpretation is the psychological or sociological fact that there are quite a few incompatible views, each held by many highly intelligent, thoughtful people who sort into a number of incompatible camps. There are older anti-realist views like Copenhagen, their descendants the ‘Psi-epistemic’ views that focus on information, and at least three ‘Psi-realistic’ camps – Bohm, objective collapse and Everett – where the last two come in multiple flavors. Beyond Weird surveys this landscape, which one would hope of any such book, but Ball has a definite preference. As he says: ‘I believe that most if not all of the thinking I have discussed in this book has converged, in one way or another, on this question: what is and is not permitted about information?’ He is clearly in the epistemic, information-focused camp. What makes it difficult to write a review of Beyond Weird, but also motivates me to write one, is that I am a confident, committed, died-in-the-wool Everettian, where that is the realist interpretation that Ball expends the greatest amount of effort arguing against. My challenge here is to resist launching into a long panegyric in favor of the Everett interpretation and a polemic refuting all of Ball’s arguments against it. In favor of Ball, he clearly understands the physics and is an excellent writer. Would I recommend his book? Yes, for those who are spending some effort on quantum interpretations and have read, or are going to read, other authors to develop a broad view of the subject. I cannot recommend it to people for whom this will be their only read on the subject, simply because I believe the book’s conclusions are wrong! Because of this I can give it no more than four stars. Another recent book that has sometimes been reviewed together with Ball’s is Adam Becker’s ‘What is Real?’ Becker takes a more historical, sociological (kind of Kuhnian) approach toward the development of quantum interpretation since its inception. In contrast to Ball he is partial to realism, although he remains agnostic between the three realist camps mentioned earlier. I enjoyed his book. Also, Sean Carroll (Caltech physicist) is coming out with a popularization this September entitled ‘Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime.’ I’m going to love it – I hear it’s mainly an argument for the Everett interpretation. For what it’s worth, I will offer a reading list for those who really want to take a serious crack at quantum foundations. First, if you’re not familiar with quantum mechanics try ‘Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum’ by Leonard Susskind. Then go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (online) and read all their articles listed under Quantum Mechanics and then under Quantum Theory. These have long bibliographies, mainly of philosophy journal articles. Great reading lists across the philosophy of physics can be found by Googling ‘David Wallace USC’ and going to his website. Wallace is in my opinion the best professional philosopher of physics hands down, while Sean Carroll is the best philosophy writer among practicing physicists, where Max Tegmark comes in second. Wallace’s reading lists of books and articles are very thorough and evenhanded, covering the spectrum of interpretations, although in fairness he is the most vocal exponent of the Everett interpretation among philosophers. In general, free versions of most journal articles can be found on the authors’ websites, through Google Scholar, or on the University of Pittsburgh PhilSci preprint archive. All this reading will provide an even-handed rundown of the state of play in the field. It should keep you busy for a couple years. Happy reading!

I originally learned Physics back in the Sixties and was in school in Boston. Arthur Fiedler was the conductor for the Boston Pops and he did a commercial for Orange Juice and said, Its not for Breakfast anymore. It was part of a marketing campaign to change the perception of how people viewed Orange Juice. This book has a similar feel to it, only in this case, it is in the need to transition from the ideas of traditional, early twentieth century QM to Modern Quantum Mechanics. I struggled with many conceptual aspects of Quantum Mechanics at the time and never really felt comfortable with the explanations I was given. On my Bucket List was coming to an accomodation with my understanding of Quantum Mechanics. This book checked off this item from my bucket list. This book approaches Quantum Mechanics conceptually and tackles virtually all of my lingering questions. While it does not answer all of them, it does validate that my discomfort was warranted. Phillip Ball makes it clear that Quantum Physics has made some significant advances and in the process made clear that the quantum revolution in the early Twentieth Century opened the door, but that it would take years before what was present could be grasped. This book does not make the claim to have the answer, but it does provide important insights. It also does not fall into the trap that many philosophers have made by projecting a science they did not understand into domains which it did not apply. This book carefully lays out the questions, and then articulates the many possibilities currently being researched. In short, it is a wonderful introduction into the emerging perspectives on Quantum Mechanics and how it connects to our Physical realities. As the title suggests, Quantum Mechanics has been filled with many forms of Weirdness that perhaps will disappear as it moves into its modern iteration.

There are better books about QM. Ball is usually on top of his subject. This subject is over his head it seems. He keeps saying no one understands it. It arises from the math first, gedankenexperiment second, and physical experiment third. The difference between knowing something and knowing about something.

Philip Bell is an incredible writer and teacher, and he understands and imparts quantum mechanics like no other author I've read. His book is full of hundreds of quote worthy phrases and unique ways of looking at quantum mechanics that I've not read anywhere else. After 20 years of reading about quantum mechanics, and a solid year of trying to understand it as best as I could (I'm writing a book on quantum computing), this book explained many topics better than anywhere else. I feel like I truly understand entanglement, decoherence, and many other topics for the first time (and I thought I knew them well before I read this book). It's a life-changing read. With this said, I would not recommend this as anyone's first and only book on quantum mechanics. Bell covers the basics, and sometimes quite well...but on most topics he moves from the very basics to the upper levels quite quickly. I've read better beginner guides. If you need that, get something else. But once you have a decent understanding of quantum mechanics, this is the book everyone should read. It is revolutionary. It is masterful. If you want to grok quantum mechanics, this is the book to get. I'm sorry I just found it now.

A good conceptual coverage of quantum physics plus an oversight of “What next”. All a bit challenging and mind boggling.

Amazing book, great to read yourself and then pass it on to a friend or a kid. Books like these are wonderful because they're very approachable and anyone can read them, and yet you learn about latest scientific discoveries. Fascinating book! Also makes a great gift for your nerdy friends :)

Ik had hoge verwachtingen om nieuwe inzichten te verkrijgen, maar die werden niet ingelost. Veel van de gekende kwantum mechanica begrippen werden herhaaldelijk herkauwd, maar met weinig echt nieuwe inzichten en dit als iemand die van verre de topic over de laatste 40 jaar heeft gevolgd. Als ik 120 jaar oud was geweest en ik vergeleek met de kennis die ik zo'n 100 jaar geleden zou hebben gehad, had ik wel wat nieuwe inzichten gekregen.

A readable and knowledgeable introduction to the "weirdness" of quantum physics.

A book that surprises by its gripping tale and its 'quantum' of insights around a whole range of topics a lot of us would have read between 10-12th class Physics - from Max Planck's work on black body radiation, De Broglie's wave-particle duality, double slit experiment (Thomas Young),...... and Chemistry - Radioactive decay (C14 to N14), Quantum numbers (principal, azimuthal, magnetic and spin), Pauli's exclusion principle... And a whole range of distantly familiar topics.. Building into a climax of logical thought experiments around the mysterious world of quanta, and the limits of reason.. (as it stands today)... A classic on quantum physics for commoners... Couldn't get my hands on the hardcover version and so, Kindled it... Unputdownable 👍🏼