Entanglement

The Greatest Mystery in Physics

By: Amir D. Aczel

Narrated by: Henry Leyva

Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Will "beam me up, Scotty" become reality? Quantum mechanics suggests it may...and soon.

Since cyberspace - a word coined by a science fiction writer - became reality, the lines between "science" and "science fiction" have become increasingly blurred. Now, the young field of quantum mechanics holds out the promise that some of humanity's wildest dreams may be realized. Serious scientists, working off of theories first developed by Einstein and his colleagues 70 years ago, have been investigating the phenomenon known as "entanglement," one of the strangest aspects of the strange universe of quantum mechanics.

According to Einstein, quantum mechanics required entanglement - the idea that subatomic particles could become inextricably linked, and that a change to one such particle would instantly be reflected in its counterpart, even if a universe separated them. Einstein felt that if the quantum theory could produce such incredibly bizarre effects, then it had to be invalid. But new experiments both in the United States and Europe show not only that it does happen, but that it may lead to unbreakable codes, and even teleportation...

Entanglement is also available in print from Four Walls Eight Windows.

©2002 Amir D. Aczel
(P)2002 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Mathematician and science writer Amir D. Aczel has amused and edified readers with his clear explications of the profundities of numbers, especially those that led to enduring questions in mysticism and philosophy." (The New York Times)

the history of entanglement

kind of a who's who of physics and their roles. teleportation coming soon... my opinion.

Not as good as I hoped

I have an M.Sc. in astrophysics and took quantum mechanics courses at the university. No longer working in the field, I hoped to refresh my refresh my knowledge and reconnect with the intellectual challenge and adventure that those courses provided. Unfortunately, Aczel spends too much time listing which physicist read what paper, where he travelled and whom he spoke to (or otherwise got "entangled"). It gets boring after a while. Too little time is devoted to explaining ideas and their impact. After listening to the whole book, I don't feel like my understanding of quantum entanglement is any deeper than before. I can't compare to the author's other works, but it appears that he was lazy about this one: listing names, dates and meetings is easier than explaining esoteric and counter-intuitive ideas. Also, the narrator's misreading of the formulas (e.g. frequency pronounced as "v" instead of the Greek letter "nu") left an impression of sloppiness in production.

Audio Book is Not a Good Format for This Book

This is not a book that I was able to enjoy at all in audio-book format. I am not a scientist nor a mathematician, but I like to think that I am reasonably astute and have read quite a few books on science and math. But this is not the right format for this book. It is not easy to follow the numerous formulas, tables, and calculations read by the narrator and I was completely lost most of the time. I stayed with it to the end, but I wouldn't do it again for any reason. I have read a couple of other books by this author, and enjoyed them. But not this one

Entanglement

I read quite a few physics books for fun. This book was fair to poor. A 10 minutes book in a 2 hour format. The equations are useless in audio format. Too much personal history of the scientists to "fill" the book.

Waste of time, watch a YouTube video instead

The writer spends way too much time on the personal life of the physiatrist rather than what they actually discovered, like Shrudenger having an affair while married, if I cared about this I would watch TMZ.
More than what you can learn from a 15 minute video on YouTube this book offers very little insight Quantum physics.

Not the best narrator but I think the writer is to be blamed for spending 6 hours to say what can be said in a couple of minutes.

Waste of time and money

entangled reader

I am a phd chemist and was hoping that this book would provide some insight into one of the most unusual consequences of modern physics - entanglement. However, the book spends way to much time in providing background material that is interesting if you are not al all familiar with the like of Einstein and Shrodinger but does not help in the understanding of entanglement.

His examples are in two categories- too simple to be useful and too complex to be understood - there is little middle ground. I was very frustrated in reading this book as it moved from one extreme of my understanding tothe other. At the end, I don't know any more about entanglement than I did when I started.

Great Book, if you can stand the narrator

I have to admit, the content and subject matter of this book is fascinating. However, the narrator makes it sounds like the cold reading cast calls for an infomercial host. I never thought I would get hung up on such an insignificant matter as intonation or cadence, but there is something so repetitively irritating and falsely enthusiastic about the way this book is read that I had to stop listening and buy the hardcopy. A good read, but a terrible listen.

Not good in audio

There are too many mathematical formulas and descriptions of experimental designs for them to be easily followed in audio. I would MUCH rather read this as a book where I could see the formulas. Interesting stuff, though.

this lost me

I didn't get much more out of this than what was in the publisher's summary. I had hoped for a layman's interpretation of the principles and implications of Entanglement but got a lot of detail I couldn't understand. It seemed to be one equation after the next, lots of constants, variables and derivatives. It's been years since I've had calculus or physics so this was way over my head. Perhaps the phenomenon is so strange it can't be simplified. I found the narrator boring as well. If you're not a mathematician or a physicist, I suggest you forget this one.
Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time was much more understandable and interesting.

Too Much "Mystery"

This book emphasizes how "mysterious" quantum theory is. Something Deeply Hidden is much better than this.