Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries

Astrophysicist Gribbin takes readers on an exciting, lucid and mind-stretching tour of the puzzles and paradoxes of quantum physics. Since the publication of his 1984 bestseller In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, experiments have confirmed some of the bizarre phenomena of the subatomic world--a single atom that goes two ways at once and interferes with itself; pairs of particles linked across space and instantaneously ``communicating'' with one another; photons (particles of light) for which time stands still. Gribbin reviews IBM physicist Charles Bennett's 1993 proposal that quantum theory supports teleportation of objects through space and Oxford physicist David Deutsch's recent outline of an experiment designed to tell us whether multiple universes exist. He endorses a ``transactional interpretation'' of quantum mechanics based on the notion that quantum waves can travel backwards through time. A gifted popularizer, Gribbin uses thought-experiments and diagrams to make difficult ideas accessible without oversimplifying. (May)