Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat

How Two Great Minds Battled Quantum Randomness to Create a Unified Theory of Physics

By: Paul Halpern

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger were friends and comrades-in-arms against what they considered the most preposterous aspects of quantum physics: its indeterminacy. Einstein famously quipped that God does not play dice with the universe, and Schrödinger is equally well known for his thought experiment about the cat in the box who ends up "spread out" in a probabilistic state, neither wholly alive nor wholly dead. Both of these famous images arose from these two men's dissatisfaction with quantum weirdness and with their assertion that underneath it all, there must be some essentially deterministic world. Even though it was Einstein's own theories that made quantum mechanics possible, both he and Schrödinger could not bear the idea that the universe was, at its most fundamental level, random.

As the Second World War raged, both men struggled to produce a theory that would describe in full the universe's ultimate design, first as collaborators, then as competitors. They both ultimately failed in their search for a grand unified theory - not only because quantum mechanics is true but because Einstein and Schrödinger were also missing a key component: of the four forces we recognize today (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, and the strong force), only gravity and electromagnetism were known at the time.

Despite their failures, much of modern physics remains focused on the search for a grand unified theory. As Halpern explains, the recent discovery of the Higgs boson makes the standard model - the closest thing we have to a unified theory - nearly complete. And while Einstein and Schrödinger tried and failed to explain everything in the cosmos through pure geometry, the development of string theory has, in its own quantum way, brought this idea back into vogue. As in so many things, even when he was wrong, Einstein couldn't help but be right.

©2015 Paul Halpern (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Very good physics book.

This was probably the 2nd best book on physics I've listened to. Quantum by Manjit Kumar is still the best. Overall engaging story. Some complicated physics but more about the men, their ideas, and their mistakes.

Great for a scientist

It was a good listen but you need to have at least a basic understanding of physics to get what is being explained. I learned a lot about both Einstein and Schrodinger and tried to follow the science but it was mostly beyond my reach. I would probably listen again and I might follow it better.

For the well read physics enthusiast

Excellent mix of personalities and science. I was engaged for the entire book. I highly recommend it for the science enthusiast.

Time and Place.

loved it I like the play on different characters showing them as being human and having emotions in friendships and arguments over politics and the media

History of Einstein

This is a great history of Einstein and his contemporaries. I learned a lot about them.