Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics
Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics
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Product Description
Physics, once known as "natural philosophy," is the most basic science, explaining the world we live in, from the largest scale down to the very, very, very smallest, and our understanding of it has changed over many centuries. In Black Bodies and Quantum Cats, science writer Jennifer Ouellette traces key developments in the field, setting descriptions of the fundamentals of physics in their historical context as well as against a broad cultural backdrop. Newtons laws are illustrated via the film Addams Family Values, while Back to the Future demonstrates the finer points of special relativity. Poes "The Purloined Letter" serves to illuminate the mysterious nature of neutrinos, and Jeanette Wintersons novel Gut Symmetries provides an elegant metaphorical framework for string theory.
An enchanting and edifying read, Black Bodies and Quantum Cats shows that physics is not an arcane field of study but a profoundly human endeavorand a fundamental part of our everyday world.
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Rating
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever understand the first thing about string theory, much less about cosmic microwaves– but eager to improve my brain a bit, I recently picked up a copy of Black Bodies and Quantum cats. Now, thanks to this immensely enjoyable book, I am happy to report that for the first time in my life I might actually be able to hold a coherent conversation about these and more. By presenting some of the most challenging ideas imagineable within cultural (and even pop cultural) contexts, and writing about them with wit and humor, Ouellette has done the near impossible — she’s made physics fun for the lay person… fun, and, dare I say, maybe even a little bit sexy. I imagine that even if you did have a better grasp of physics than I did prior to picking up this book, you would find it to be an extremely entertaining, smart, and very humorous refresher course.
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I’ve read a number of “popular science” books and would rate this among the best. The variety of topics covered make it an ideal resource for science teachers as well as a good pick for gym-readers and others that get frustrated with the amount of time and effort required to follow many popular science books. Ouellette’s style is entertaining and her enthusiasm for discovery and understanding is contagious. This book is a refreshing detour from those that require 250 pages of background reading before you reach the main topic.
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I studied physics in school, but I still enjoy reading popular physics books for fun from time to time (I know, what a nerd!). One of the best things about this one is the inclusion of fascinating historical insights that bring people like Tesla to life (on the page anyway). “Black Bodies and Quantum Cats” is a fun read that is ideal for casual science fans and budding scientists alike. I highly recommend it, and I am going to give copies to all my nieces and nephews to show them that physics is much more than equations on a chalk board.
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Jennifer Ouellette and Albert Einstein would have made great contemporaries. While Einstein was amusing himself with questions like “I wonder what would happen if I was driving a car at the speed of light and I turned my headlights on,” Ouellette gets similar inspiration from backyard oddities.
When I first heard of this book, I assumed it was another treatise on Schrodinger’s famed cat hypothesis. Instead, it’s an incredible look at physics through real world concepts that are familiar and easy to grasp.
More and more physicists are learning to share their knowledge with an audience that is not necessarily made up of scientific scholars. Joe Six Pack has an innate curiousity about the lofty questions of existance and the universe around him. Theorists and physicists are finally coming to understand that. They are writing for that wide-eyed audience these days instead of for teh scientific community expressly.
Science can only benefit from this growing interest in matters that were once exclusive to the men and women who worked in labs and huddled together in lecture halls. Ouellette, with her writing background, is perfect for the job of bringing complex matters, like quantum mechanics, out of the classrooms and into the populace. She has an eye for science and a beautiful way with the language. Those attributes are great for people who want to know as much as they can about emerging science, but who will likely never be enrolled at MIT.
Writers like Ouellette, Brian Green and Michio Kaku are opening up the world of physics to an expanding list of readers and that’s good for everybody. With the analogies and thought experiments offered up in “Black Bodies and Quantum Cats,” even laymen like myself and Joe Six Pack can sound reasonably smart when we’re hanging around the bars and trying to impress our fellow drinkers. This book is an instant winner for those with even a passing interest in physics.
– Mark LaFlamme, author of “The Pink Room.”
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If Jennifer Ouellette had been writing books like this when I was a kid, she’d have been my favorite explicator of science. Instead, I was reading Isaac Asimov, who was fun and interesting but a scientist himself, with a tendency to focus on minute details that were sometimes a little bewildering to someone just getting her feet wet. Ouellette knows not only how to get her physics-phobic audience’s attention, but avoids bogging them down in technicalities.
Occasionally, the techniques of writing for a general audience call for the sacrifice of precision in favor of broader generalities, like “rounding off” the technical details of lens grinding, which are best left to a more in-depth discussion of the topic. But as a non-scientist who’s been reading science writing for the last 30 years as well as teaching it at the university level, I can truthfully say that very little is lost in this book. In this case, “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” to quote Mary Poppins. Not too many people are eager to read about physics, whether it’s cloaked in pop culture or not, but Ouellette slyly draws you in with doses of the Olsen Twins, the Addams Family, and the DaVinci Code. By the end of the book, you’ll catch yourself thinking that maybe physics isn’t so terrifying, and certainly not boring. And if you’re not getting the nitty-gritty details here, well, you can always go read Richard Feynman, or try plowing through Stephen Hawking.
And you’re not going to read about flying monks in any of their books.
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I found this a curiously fun sort of read-different from my usual choice of reading entertainment. I don’t typically read science books, mostly because I’m lazy and don’t want to work at understanding something really technical (many science writers put off the general public by delving too deeply), but hey folks, the author makes the science easy to grasp. And the writing style is witty, light and intelligent. Ouellette has a gift for marrying science, history and storytelling.
What’s especially appealing is the way the author connects seemingly esoteric science with our everyday life-Reddi-whip (the physics of foam), velcro (biomimicry)-and illuminates the process by which scientists and inventors impact our lives. I loved the references to literature and pop culture that segue into the science or serve as examples of the science in action.
There’s something for everyone. Science fans will get an enlightening and lively look into the history and people behind the discoveries. Those more interested in history will learn a thing or two about the science (painlessly). And old English majors, like me, will appreciate the storytelling.
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Real science made fun.In easy bites, she starts with an anecdote, like SJ Gould and teases you into understanding principles of physics you never thought you coud learn. In an antiscience age, in an antirational age, this is to be cherished
Marvin Thalenberg MD
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This is a great book that skims the surface of a number of physics topics. The author does a great job explaining each topic in an easy to understand manner, then continues to go more in depth, while still being understandable for the average reader. Being somewhat of a physics buff myself, I found the light heartedness of the book refreshing. Far different than reading Hawking or Greene, but equally as interesting. Don’t miss Jen’s blog!
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This is a GREAT product. I absolutely love this book. I first checked it out from the library and fell in love with it and had to order it. I found a great used copy on Amazon. It came in excellent condition (as promised), great price, and was delivered very quickly. Jennifer is absolutely brilliant in the way that she conveys the complex ideas of physics/quantum physics into a digestible and practical manner. EXCELLENT READ!!
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This book not only educates you on the world of physics, it’s also full of fun historical facts that lead up to that world. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in learning about the inner workings of the physical world around us… or to those who have a propensity to tear things apart to see how they work!