Einstein's Unfinished Revolution
by Lee Smolin · first published 2019
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3recommended by
5HN commenters
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Quantum physics is the golden child of modern science. It is the basis of our understanding of atoms, radiation, and so much else, from elementary particles and basic forces to the behavior of materials. But for a century it has also been the problem child of science: it has been plagued by intense disagreements between its inventors, strange paradoxes, and implications that seem like the stuff of fantasy. Whether it's Schrödinger's cat--a creature that is simultaneously dead and alive--or a belief that the world does not exist independently of our observations of it, quantum theory challenges
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If you're a lay person like me and you want to make sense of this, read "Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum" by Lee Smolin. It was just published recently, and it anticipates this result! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316818/einsteins-un...
on “Quantum Leaps, Long Assumed to Be Instantaneous, Take Time” ↗Another book I'm enjoying is "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution" [1] by Lee Smolin, which also has a deep dive into foundations of QM. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Unfinished-Revolution-Searc...
on “How the Many-Worlds Theory of Hugh Everett Split the Universe” ↗Has anyone else read Lee Smolin's new book, "Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum"? It provides an excellent overview of how quantum physics got hijacked by Bohr, how Einstein's realist views were stymied by his inability to let go of locality…
on “To catch and reverse a quantum jump mid-flight” ↗I wrote a comment one level above where I recommended "Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum" by Lee Smolin, and I thought I'd toss that in the ring here.
on “Quantum Leaps, Long Assumed to Be Instantaneous, Take Time” ↗Lee Smolins book "einstein's unfinished revolution" is a fairly accessible, and all of his papers are on arxiv, e.g. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05108.pdf Stephen Wolfram has an interesting blog post which is somewhat related https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/what-is-spacetime-re...…
on “Google's Quantum Processor May Achieve Quantum Supremacy in Months” ↗Lee Smolin deals with this question in Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum. He relies on the same facts, makes many of the same points you do, and he comes to the exact opposite conclusion (assuming, of course, that I actually understand…
on “Why the foundations of physics have not progressed for 40 years” ↗Lee Smolin’s book, “Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution” is largely about particle/wave duality and an alternate theory that never caught on: the Pilot Wave theory. It’s a Realist alternative to the Anti-Realist school of Heisenberg, etc. As Feynman used…
on “The ‘consciousness causes quantum collapse’ hypothesis (2017)” ↗Einstein died before we learned that quantum entanglement was not local and occurs over distance. The book "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution"[0] talks about what he knew and what was found after his death. It also talks about where and why modern quantum mechanics diverge from his theories. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein's_Unfinished_Revolu...
on “Einstein's dream of a unified field theory accomplished?” ↗