What I'm reading ...

I have started Quantum: A Guide For The Perplexed by Jim Al-Khalili. Although I normally try to bring variation into my reading, I thought that I was on a roll after the last book and would stick with the subject. This book was recommended by a friend, so it seemed the logical choice. Here’s the blurb:

Quantum mechanics underpins modern science and provides us with a blueprint for reality itself. And yet it has been said that if you're not shocked by it, you don't understand it. But is quantum physics really so unknowable? Is reality really so strange? And just how can cats be half-alive and half-dead at the same time?
Our journey into the quantum begins with nature's own conjuring trick, in which we discover that atoms -- contrary to the rules of everyday experience -- can exist in two locations at once. To understand this we travel back to the dawn of the twentieth century and witness the birth of quantum theory, which over the next one hundred years was to overthrow so many of our deeply held notions about the nature of our universe. Scientists and philosophers have been left grappling with its implications every since.

Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality - by Manjit Kumar

I started reading this book hoping to learn a bit more about quantum theory. It met that objective. The text is very clearly written and well paced and there is very little mathematics to frighten the reader. I found it easy and compelling to read and there were two bonuses. First, there is a lot about the people - the scientists involved in the development of quantum theory - which I found fascinating. Second, the context to the story is well defined, which educated me on 20th Century European history. I would never have thought that a book on such a topic could be such a relaxing read.

What I'm reading ...

I have started Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality by Manjit Kumar. I thought that is was time for some serious non-fiction and that this would fit the bill. Here’s the blurb:

For most people, quantum theory is a byword for mysterious, impenetrable science. And yet for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly-written history of this fundamental scientific revolution, and the divisive debate at its heart. For 60 years most physicists believed that quantum theory denied the very existence of reality itself. Yet Kumar shows how the golden age of physics ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century. Quantum sets the science in the context of the great upheavals of the modern age. In 1925 the quantum pioneers nearly all hailed from upper-middle-class academic families; most were German; and their average age was 24. But it was their irrational, romantic spirit, formed in reaction to the mechanised slaughter of the First World War that inspired their will to test science to its limits. The essential read for anyone fascinated by this complex and thrilling story and by the band of young men at its heart.

Pontoon: A Lake Wobegon Novel - by Garrison Keillor

As expected, this was a pleasant, easy read. I love the quality of his writing, which always conjures up a great picture of life in LW.  A few favourite lines:
“You look like death on a biscuit.”
“… was 72, an age when a man is proud of being able to still put his clothes on standing up”
“Some people finish dinner and drive off in the wrong direction. Like Evelyn. Instead of south, she went Up.” [Evelyn had just died.]