Taming the Atom: The Emergence of the Visible Microworld

Not many physicists these days have Baeyer's assured curiosity, which allows him to borrow a title from Saint-Exupery (``One only understands the things that one tames'') for his discussion of the wraiths and phantoms of nearly 50 years of quantum theory. Baeyer has the Little Prince's determined faith that the next generation will see the atomic world, and perhaps will at last unify atomic theory and quantum mechanics, the physics of Einstein and Bohr. As in his Rainbows, Snowflakes and Quarks, Baeyer dances gracefully with everyone's theories and makes them all seem charming to the general reader. But this is straight quantum, without clever analogy, Tao insights or any apology for the contradictions in current theories; the volume is, unfortunately, also without mathematics, even as an appendix. When the third revolution in physics (``a second quantum revolution'') comes--not necessarily, Baeyer points out, as a synthesis of past ones--Baeyer's readers will have already been alerted. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Aug.)