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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
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About Spooky Action At A Distance: The Phenomenon That
Product Description Long-listed for the 2016 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing AwardDelightfully readable, Spooky Action at a Distance is a mind-bending voyage to the frontiers of modern physics that will change the way we think about reality.What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. 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. It appears to be almost magical. Einstein grappled with this oddity and couldn't come to terms with it, describing it as "spooky action at a distance." More recently, the mystery has deepened as other forms of nonlocality have been uncovered. This strange occurrence, which has direct connections to black holes, particle collisions, and even the workings of gravity, holds the potential to undermine our most basic understandings of physical reality. If space isn't what we thought it was, then what is it? In Spooky Action at a Distance, George Musser sets out to answer that question, offering a provocative exploration of nonlocality and a celebration of the scientists who are trying to explain it. Musser 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 often 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 not only space and time but also the origins of the universe-and they suggest a new grand unified theory of physics. “An important book that provides insight into key new developments in our understanding of the nature of space, time and the universe. It will repay careful study.” ―John Gribbin, The Wall Street Journal“An endlessly surprising foray into the current mother of physics' many knotty mysteries, the solving of which may unveil the weirdness of quantum particles, black holes, and the essential unity of nature.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Review Long-listed for the PEN / E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing AwardShort-listed for Physics World's 2016 Book of the YearTen Physics Books of 2015, Symmetry MagazineThe Science Books We Loved Most in 2015, Gizmodo Best Astronomy and Astrophysics Books, Space.com“An important book that provides insight into key new developments in our understanding of the nature of space, time and the universe. It will repay careful study.” ―John Gribbin, The Wall Street Journal “Musser deftly traces the history of our quest to understand this curious phenomenon, covering an ambitious breadth of challenging topics from string theory to the multiverse to the unification of physics.” ―Science“[An] enlightening (and highly entertaining) book, one that takes us beyond earlier popular treatments into the speculative thickets of contemporary physics.” ―Jim Holt, The New York Review of Books“A good science writer has to show us the fallible men and women who made the theory, and then show us why, after the human foibles are boiled off, the theory remains reliable. No well-tested scientific concept is more astonishing than the one that gives its name to a new book by the Scientific American contributing editor George Musser, Spooky Action at Distance. The ostensible subject is the mechanics of quantum entanglement; the actual subject is the entanglement of its observers. Musser presents the hard-to-grasp physics of 'non-locality,' and his question isn't so much how this weird thing can be true as why, given that this weir
