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    Cover of The age of entanglement

    The age of entanglement

    Louisa Gilder · 2008

    Physics & Cosmology
    Open LibraryAmazon
    Stats for nerds
    3recommend
    4mentions
    4people
    2016–2020years
    75% recommend25% neutral

    Mentions per year

    20162017201820192020

    What Hacker News says

    1. zengidMay 2020
      I love this sort of "Historical Fiction" where interactions and conversations between The Great People of Science are imagined and portrayed. A great example of this is Louisa Gilder's wonderful book _The_Age_Of_Entanglement:_When_Quantum_Physics_was_Reborn

      https://www.amazon.com/Age-Entanglement-Quantum-Physics-Rebo...

      thread
    2. m31415Aug 2019
      From the article:

      > I also loved Louisa Gilder’s The Age of Entanglement and Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time Warps. That one was slow for me, but it was like being in the kind of physics class I always dreamed of taking. At Harvard I had taken a class, Physics for Poets. The professor said in an impatient way, “If you can’t follow the math, then you don’t have to, but I can’t really explain it without the math, so just do the best you can.”

      And this is true. You can't learn physics by listening to a physicist talk or by reading popular science books. The title of the article gave me the impression that the author picked up a university-level book in physics and worked through it. As far as reading popular science goes, I think a lot of SF authors do that. And there are also SF authors who dig deeply into the science they write about (e.g., Greg Egan, Peter Watts, etc.).

      thread
    3. mathgeniusApr 2019
      There have been several books recently that describe the saga of twentieth century quantum physics, culminating in the realisation that entangelement is a real thing that has consequences. My favourite is "The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn" by Louisa Gilder. It's a fun book.

      The history is fascinating. I'm waiting for a book that describes the deeper sociological aspect. A book with attitude. For instance, several of the founders of quantum physics had mystico-philosophical things to say about the quantum. But all of this was thrown out the window with the advent of the second world war. Physics became overrun by calculations. It took quite a while for people to get around to thinking about entanglement again. John Bell struggled for decades to get people to notice his work on this. Even the guy that invented the laser was met with stern disbelief when he presented his results to the "elders". Partly this is science just doing its thing, but there also does seem to be a history of science being dragged, kicking and screaming. Especially with quantum physics.

      thread
    4. jostylrJun 2016
      This seems to be a very enjoyable read. Even if you just skim the equations, it has a really nice perspective on building up relativity and some alternative pathways.

      Funny enough, I had just gotten to the chapter on Schrödinger's derivation of his quantum equation in "The Age of Entanglement" by Louisa Gilder, a book whose style of historical scientific fiction reminds me of reading Asimov's Foundation series.

      thread

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