The Quantum World -- Quantum Physics For Everyone

311 Pages·078.61 MB·English

by  Kenneth William Ford

THE QUANTUM WORLD
QUANTUM PHYSICS FOR EVERYONE—

Featuring a new section, “Quantum Questions”

Kenneth W. Ford
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THE QUANTUM WORLD

THE QUANTUM WORLD
Quantum Physics for Everyone
Kenneth W.Ford
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2004
Drawings by Paul G. Hewitt
Copyright © 2004, 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2005
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Ford, Kenneth William, 1926—
The quantum world : quantum physics for everyone / Kenneth W.Ford.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-674-01342-5 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 0-674-01832-X (pbk.)
1. Quantum theory. I. Title.
OC174.12.F68 2004
530.12—dc22
2003068565
To Charlie, Thomas, Nathaniel, Jasper, Colin, Hannah,
Masha, Daniel, Casey, Toby, and Isaiah

Acknowledgments
J onas Schultz and Paul Hewitt read the entire manuscript with care
and made manyhelpful suggestions. Paul also provided the drawings
that have brought ideas in the book to life. | am greatly indebted to
them both. Thanks, also, to those eagle-eyed friends who read and com-
mented on major portions (or even all) of the book: Pam Bond, Eli
Burstein, Howard Glasser, Diane Goldstein, and Joe Scherrer. Diane’s
high-school seniors at Germantown Academy carved up the book
among themselves and provided valuable (and unvarnished) feedback.
They are Rachel Ahrenhold, Ryan Cassidy, Meredith Cocco, Brian
Dimm, Emmanuel Girin, Alex Hamill, Mark Hightower, Mike Nieto,
Luis Perez, Matt Roman, Jared Solomon, and Joseph Verdi. Diane, sens-
ing this book’s potential for classroom use, also suggested Appendix D
and was invaluble in helpingto fashionit.
Among those who provided helpful facts and data (or tried dili-
gently to find what I was looking for) were Finn Aaserud, Stephen
Brush, Brian Burke, Val Fitch, Alexei Kojevnikov, Alfred Mann, Flor-
ence Mini, Jay Pasachoff, Max Tegmark, and Virginia Trimble. Jason
Ford and Nina Tannenwald helped to get Chapter 1 off on the right
foot, and Lillian Lee was a valuable sounding board and source of ideas
on the title. Heidi Miller Sims was my more-than-competent fact
_ checker.
My wife, Joanne, andall of my children—Paul, Sarah, Nina, Caro-
line, Adam, Jason, and Jan—were unflaggingly supportive of what they
long ago learnedis called “work”: sitting at a desk. I have had the good
fortune to fall in with a most skilled and agreeable band at Harvard
University Press: Michael Fisher, Sara Davis, and Maria Ascher.
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