HOW big is an atom? What is nuclear fission? How does a laser work? If you have ever found yourself asking such questions, you are in luck – physicist Kenneth Ford’s question-and-answer-style guide to the weirdness of the quantum realm is a clear and handy reference book.
Ford’s easy-going prose will help you feel right at home at nature’s tiniest and most counter-intuitive scale. The brevity of each answer prevents Ford from going into much depth, but each tidbit is enough to whet any quantum tourist’s appetite.
Given the paradoxical ways of quantum physics, perhaps it is only fitting that the most intriguing question of all is the one that remains unanswered: How come the quantum?
The phrasing is borrowed from Ford’s mentor, John Wheeler, who felt there was some deeper theory that would explain all the oddities of the quantum world. We are still waiting, but in the meantime Ford manages to explain a lot.
101 Quantum Questions
Harvard University Press