Tales of the Quantum

Everybody has heard that we live in a world made of atoms. But far more fundamentally we live in a universe made of quanta. Many things are not made of atoms: light radio waves electric current magnetic fields Earth's gravitational field not to mention exotica such a neutron stars black holes dark energy and dark matter. But everything including atoms is made of highly unified or coherent bundles of energy called quanta that (like everything else) obey certain rules. In the case of the quantum these rules are called quantum physics. This is a book about quanta and their unexpected some would say peculiar behavior--tales if you will of the quantum. <p/>The quantum has developed the reputation of being capricious bewildering even impossible to understand. The peculiar habits of quanta are certainly not what we would have expected to find at the foundation of physical reality but these habits are not necessarily bewildering and not at all impossible or paradoxical. This book explains those habits--the quantum rules--in everyday language without mathematics or unnecessary technicalities. While most popular books about quantum physics follow the topic's scientific history from 1900 to today this book follows the phenomena: wave-particle duality fundamental randomness quantum states superpositions (being in two places at once) entanglement non-locality Schrodinger's cat and quantum jumps and presents the history and the scientists only to the extent that they illuminate the phenomena.<br>