Something Deeply Hidden

Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

De: Sean Carroll

Narrado por: Sean Carroll

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

As you read these words, copies of you are being created.

Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything.

Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: physics has been in crisis since 1927. Quantum mechanics has always had obvious gaps—which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable book, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us.

Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many Worlds Theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established.

Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding—of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of.

Boggle

Mr Carroll has left no stone unturned in his analysis of the 'difficult' roots of quantum mechanics. His smooth style carries you along his lucid stream of explanation. I am on my third listening. His dissertation on the structure of Hilbert spaces via the example of spins & q-bits is tremendous. As for the deeply hidden secret, well, this was known several generations ago. It's just that very few like the implication : the many worlds interpretation of measurement instances. I hadn't known that this a straightforward consequence of the simplest set of axioms. Entanglement now sounds so obvious, not forgetting especially the experimental work of Mr Aspect who verified the musings of Mr Bell. The universe really works that way. How amazing is that !

Oh, and did you know that the Earth orbiting around the Sun generates a mere 200 Watts of power in gravitational waves ? Or that a moving body may lose kinetic energy by emitting light, and by doing so it doesn't slow down but loses mass as per E/c^2 ! These are two of many lovely snippets scattered within the text.

One point of sociology within the physics community : those who prod and poke at these base areas of quantum mechanics are viewed with at least mild disdain. We are very lucky to have Mr Carroll on the job and reporting back to us from this 'mystical' frontier. For me he is right up there with Mr Feynman for quality of communication.

A soft warning though : you'd best have no distractions while listening, as it would be a shame to miss the finer points. A quiet, dark room would be ideal.

Engaging and mind blowing!

I wish it were longer! Sean Carroll's narration adds a lot of emotional color and depth to his words, along with occasional humor, making this a very engaging read. The subject matter is very interesting and indeed mind blowing in some parts. If you enjoy physics and the nature of this universe, I highly recommend this book.

Wonderfully informative

I had read one of Sean Carroll’s previous books and found it too “watered down” for me. So I hesitantly purchased this book thinking I might be in for the same disappointment. But this book is not watered down. Unless you’re already a physicist, some amount of this will go over your head. But that’s ok. Personally I’d much rather read something mind stretching even if I don’t quite grasp it all than something that is clearly so watered down as to be completely lacking in nutrition, so to speak. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the narration is great.

Outstanding eye-opener

This book was outstanding. I've always been most interested in the true fundamentals of our universe and this book gave me my first understanding of those concepts. Truly awesome!

Sean Carroll is a great professor

but he assumes that you have a background in physics and math already going in.