More Than One Mystery: Explorations in Quantum Interference

By Mark P. Silverman

Book Overview

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." #Richard Feynman# Basing his discussion on a small number of conceptually simple models (the two-level atom, the two-slit interferometer), the author addresses a number of conceptually interesting questions concerning the puzzles of quantum mechanics. Though the phenomena arising from quantum interference are central, he maintains that they are not the only mystery in quantum mechanics: the deep connection between spin and the statistics of identical particles, the "ghostly" long-range effects that correlated particles exert on each other, and the perplexing role of topology in the interactions of charged particles and electromagnetic fields, are all conundrums yet to be understood.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0387943765
• ISBN13: 9780387943763
• Release Date: December 1994
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 3.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Essays in Quantum Interference

Mark P. Silverman's "More Than One Mystery", in much the same manner as his treatment of optics in "Waves and Grains" written a few years later, is a series of discrete but interrelated essays on different aspects of quantum interference. The treatment is semi-technical, with analyses of the math supporting the various experiments and their interpretations. Speaking as one with no math background at all and no formal training in physics, I still found this book fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable. Silverman is something of a polymath, with wide-ranging interests, and he succeeds in bringing together concepts from different fields of study in unexpected but very fruitful ways. He surely must be a wonderful classroom teacher; his enthusiasm for his subject matter is contagious, and to say that his use of language in his writing is masterful is an understatement. Formerly a journalist, he is always engaging, and never dry. Throughout, his descriptions are a model of clarity, and the precision of his vocabulary in the simplest nontechnical sentences is awe-inspiring in its elegance. This is not a textbook, but any serious student of physics who doesn't own a copy is missing out on an important book.Much of this same material is presented for a general readership in his 2002 "A Universe of Atoms, An Atom in the Universe", a revision of the now out-of-print "And Yet It Moves: Strange Systems and Subtle Questions in Physics".