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Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness | 
 enlarge | Authors: Bruce Rosenblum, Fred Kuttner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $10.38
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Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 2635
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 019534250X
Dewey Decimal Number: 530
EAN: 9780195342505
ASIN: 019534250X
Publication Date: June 16, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
In trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. Quantum Enigma explores what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all of this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and anecdotes about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, with an emphasis on what is and what is not speculation. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is controversial. Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer a sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves.
"A remarkable and readable presentation of the basic mysteries of science, our universe, and human life. Critically important problems in our understanding are interestingly discussed with perception, depth, and careful objectivity."
--Charles Townes, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics
"Lively and thought-provoking."
--The Washington Times
"This book is unique. The clearest expositions I have ever seen."
--George Greenstein, Professor of Astronomy, Amherst College
"An immensely important and exciting book."
--Raymond Chester Russ, editor of Journal of Mind and Behavior
"Exposes the hidden skeleton in the physicist's closet."
--Nick Herbert, author of Quantum Reality
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Very interesting and readable by non physicists October 12, 2008
This book is interesting because explains in easy terms physical concepts and they do so with almost no math formulas. I gave this book 4 stars and not 5 because when the discussion departs from "how to explain that observation causes results", they end talking about conscience and it's relation to results. I can't accept that all the universe came to be what it is (including all its pre-history), just because of observation. There should be an elegant way to explain the relation between how things happen in the quantum world, the relation with observation and its relation to the macro world, even when procedurally that way would be the same as the Copenhagen way. This is just my opinion. I am just an engineer; not a physicist or a philosopher.
 Oh! MY GOD August 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Truly a classic book! If I had read this book during my college years, I definitely would have been a physics student instead of doing computer engineering. Even though I knew about Schrödinger Cats, It was the biggest surprise for me to read that it was in fact physics' encounter with consciousness. It was always - shut up and calculate approach for most of us. Also being a Vedanta student, it feels good to see that philosophy and science are converging to the same point. Simply the best book on science that I ever read! And it was such a great coincidence that I saw Dr. Fred Alan Wolf and Larry King on CNN discussing the similar subject the day I finished this book.
NEXT LESSON - STRING THEORIES.... July 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It takes a little while to grasp its concepts and I am not completely convinced of all arguments. However, its a very interesting read and I'm naturally a "doubting Jane" when science is involved. I question everything beyond the norm. What this has done is spiked my interest in String Theory so as well as recommending this book as a good starter, I would then recommend you read The Elegant Universe. Better to read this one first.
Happy enlightenment!
Has science found God? July 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Quantum Enigma goes where few science books dare to go: right up to the border that separates physics from philosophy. And there it stops. The implication though is strong that something, a field of consciousness (?), is behind the universe and everything in it.
Unobserved actuality - oxymoron? July 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book on interpreting the quantum facts is one of the best I've read. It is one of the best, I think, in its understandability of the enigma one is faced with in trying to go beyond the Copenhagen interpretation.
This book presents the measurement problem of quantum physics and explains why conscious observation must have some role in influencing reality, if you choose to go beyond CI. The way the authors explain Bell's Theorem and how it became a testable theory that answered the EPR challenge to quantum theory is succinct and comprehensible to the layman, for which it was writen.
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