Review: Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat

June 23, 2021

Currently listening to Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat by Paul Halpern, recommend to anybody even latently interested in physics or the history of physics, specifically the transition from classic to modern physics that occurred in the late 19th century. It's available on Audible (where I'm listening to it).

There are a lot of things just in the first couple of chapters that you could recite to someone not in physics and sound like a whiz (e.g. how the photoelectric effects works, the history and significance of Schrödinger's wave equation, and other things I've learned in upper-level physics textbooks that people respond with "omg you're so smart and cool" to). It's not boring, as you probably have found physics to be, since the history is packed with juicy personal details and drama between scientists told in an entertaining and comfortably casual manner (such as how Einstein probably shouldn't have had a child and wife and certain physicists driving others to self-termination). The book also uses minimal technical terminology, which is why I think it would be a good time for anybody regardless of expertise (although I've only listened to the first three chapters, so no promises).

Update after finishing the book: I lied, this book is definitely technical in places and uses a lot of vocabulary that, to the uninitiated reader, will go in one ear and out the other. For me, the brief synopsis of the entire history of particle physics and, in general, most physics done since Schrödinger died, was unintelligible and felt more like a lecture than a casual listen. After listening to The Sound Book and finding out how nontechnical physics can be written as, I see how complicated this book gets at points. However, 90% of the content I think is easily understood with the analogies used or with little outside research.