Download PDF Einstein Unfinished Revolution The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum Lee Smolin

Product details File Size 9262 KB Print Length 352 pages Page Numbers Source ISBN 1594206198 Publisher Penguin Press (April 9, 2019) Publication Date April 9, 2019 Sold by Penguin Group (USA) LLC Language English ASIN B07FLK72XC

Einstein Unfinished Revolution The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum Lee Smolin Reviews

• Lee Smolin is one of the most fun quantum theorists to read. He is among a handful of popular writers who have done important research in quantum theory and quantum gravity (such as it is). He doesn't write books just to write a book, but aims to move the bleeding (and I mean bleeding) edge of physics theory forward in a way that brings the general reader along too. That is a true feat. From my point of view as a quantum physicist (and sometime popular book author) who doesn't work in quantum gravity, I always find his books educational and extremely thought provoking.
  
  The new book is a surprisingly personal exposition of Smolin's lifelong attempts to find a key to unifying quantum theory and gravity (general relativity), a task Einstein famously failed at. Smolin concludes that both of these theories need to be thrown out (while keeping their main messages intact) and an entirely new theory found. He tells us his deepest ideas about how to do that. It borders on a natural philosophy of the world, but from a very abstract point of view.
  
  Smolin explains clearly why he (and everyone else) has failed so far, and tries very hard and sincerely to point to a set of basic principles of nature (which may or may not be true), which may or may not provide a basis for a new theory.
  
  A weakness is that he describes the choice of realist/anti-realist viewpoints too simply. He seems to say that anyone who doesn't accept that physics is nonlocal must be an anti-realist and must think the world doesn't exist until someone looks at it. But that is only one way to view the implications of experimental violations of Bell inequalities, which forces us to accept that the combination of locality, realism and 'free will' (ability to choose independently which quantities will be measured) can't exist. There are more than two ways to unpack that conclusion (all of them murky).
  
  A brave, elegant, and thought-provoking book for the lay reader, and the 'lay scientist.'
• This book begins by arguing clearly and passionately that science has lost touch with reality, in the most literal sense, and hat we need to do better. But it reminds me of debates going on in Silicon Valley, where people realize that their past way of doing business is becoming ever less viable (not to mention Terminator threats) but end up funding innumerate salesmen of "principles for a people-centered internet" and folks who would paint happy faces representing love on the hard metal hulls of killer drones. The problem part is real, but where is the solution? How could we mobilize a bit better to really address this issue of reality, in reality?
  It may be that Smolin and 'tHooft are the best hope we now have for allowing that to be possible. The Financial Times review of the book was exciting to me. But could it be that physics has simply become too complex to allow real fundamental progress, given the growing issues in political environments and cultures all over the world at the same time? Smolin hints that his call to action is important to saving science itself in the face of those issues.
  He tries VERY hard to explain the issues the issues without any equations. It was somewhat amusing to me where he tried to explain a kind of Bell state, two entangled photons, as a Lesbian couple which is committed to disagreeing about absolutely everything. He then weaves a great story about where the Einstein-Bohr debate comes from, but makes it a bit too interesting, in my view, when he attacks some people (Von Neumann and Wheeler especially) in a way which overstates the case. How can he call Wheeler anti-realist, when he is a kind of author of the Everett-Wheeler theory of physics? The book does discuss that theory later on, and gets into the nitty-gritty later on. In fact, the book does get around to mentioning a number of important issues which people need to know more about.
  What should we actually DO to get back to viable realistic theories in physics? For awhile, he seems to say that the later ideas of Bohm already give a workable solution able to predict everything, but the words made me a bit skeptical. If the branching pilot waves are just a backdoor approach to reinventing Everett and Wheeler, what kind of magical particles could make Bohm 2 any better? It made me look to google scholar, where I found just one paper by Bohm that might make it clear Bohm, D. J., & Hiley, B. J. (1982). The de Broglie pilot wave theory and the further development of new insights arising out of it. Foundations of Physics, 12(10), 1001-1016.. But it is behind a pay wall.
  He also gives a list of five ideas that might be an alternative (a few pages each), but doesn't get into the kind of detail which TODAY is being tested in hard core quantum optics, in really physical measurements with implications for electronics and photonics. The real challenge here is how to bridge the gap between the important higher concerns expressed in this book and the nitty-gritty empirical reality, without getting squashed by a new aggravated form of the same forces which squashed deep learning in computer science from 1974 to 2009. He talks about the need for a confident and driven young graduate student to follow through; well, I was one of those once, but it seems to be a necessary yet insufficient condition.
  That reminds me of how he also attacks Spengler at one point, accusing him of causing chaos. Has he ever read the Decline of the West? Spengler might discourage us from rediscovering reality, more by giving up on the present state of civilization than by giving up on the reality it is losing touch with.
• I think I'm the target for this book I enjoyed physics in college, and have read about 8 books on quantum gravity. I felt the author glossed over loop quantum gravity without really ever saying why he thought the bloom was off the rose. Also I was puzzled by the assertion that either time or space was fundamental, and the other emergent. Why couldn't they both emerge from some other undiscovered process? That's what I thought this book was going to be about. In the end I got the feeling we are much further away from quantum gravity than I thought. Maybe not in my lifetime.