Erwin Schrodinger and the Quantum Revolution

A lively, fascinating biography of the father of quantum mechanics by the bestselling author of the science classic, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat Erwin Schrödinger, best known for his famous “Schrödinger's Cat” paradox, is one of the most famous physicists of the early twentieth century and a member of a new generation of quantum physicists, including Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and Niels Bohr. Yet Schrödinger's scientific discoveries only scratch the surface of what makes him so fascinating. More rumpled than Einstein, a devotee of eastern religion and philosophy, and infamous for his alternative lifestyle, his major contribution to physics—and the work for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1933—was to some extent a disappointment to him. Regardless, Schrödinger's masterpiece became an important part of the new physics of his time. This book tells the story of Schrödinger's surprisingly colorful life during one of the most fertile and creative moments in the history of science. The first accessible, in-depth biography of the Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger Takes you into the heart of the quantum revolution and explains the captivating world of quantum mechanics, which underpins all of modern science Written by bestselling author John Gribbin, one of today's greatest popular science writers whose other books include In Search of Schrödinger's Cat , In Search of the Multiverse, and Alone in the Universe

Table of Contents:
Preface xi Acknowledgements xii Introduction: It's Not Rocket Science 1 1 Nineteenth-Century Boy 7 Antecedents Early years An empire's last hurrah Scientific stirrings From schoolboy to undergraduate 2 Physics before Schrodinger 22 Newton and the world of particles Maxwell and the world of waves Boltzmann and the world of statistics 3 Twentieth-Century Man 44 Student life Life beyond the lab War service on the Italian front Back to Vienna The aftermath The peripatetic professor 4 The First Quantum Revolution 67 When black bodies are bright Enter the quantum The quantum becomes real Inside the atom Tripping the light fantastic Einstein again 5 Solid Swiss Respectability 91 The university and the ETH Personal problems and scientific progress Physics and philosophy Life and love My world view Quantum statistics 6 Matrix Mechanics 112 Half-truths What you see is what you get Matrices don?t commute Justice isn't always done 7 Schrodinger and the Second Quantum Revolution 124 Science and sensuality Riding the wave A quantum of uncertainty The Copenhagen consensus 8 The Big Time in Berlin 148 Making waves in America Berlin and Brussels The golden years Back to the future People and politics 9 The Coming of the Quantum Cat 172 Back in the USA Oxford and beyond Faster than light The cat in the box From Oxford with love 10 There, and Back Again 187 Whistling in the dark Reality bites The unhappy return Belgian interlude 11 The happiest years of my life? 201 Dev Settling in Early days at the DIAS Family Life in Dublin The post-war years Many worlds 12 What is Life? 224 Life itself Quantum chemistry The green pamphlet Schrodinger's variation on the theme The double helix 13 Back to Vienna 243 Farewell to Dublin Home is the hero Declining years The triumph of entropy 14 Schrodinger's Scientific Legacy 259 Hidden reality and a mathematician's mistake The Bell test and the Aspect experiment Quantum cryptography and the no cloning theorem Quantum teleportation and classical information The quantum computer and the Multiverse Quantum physics and reality Postscript: Quantum Generations 285 Notes 291 Sources and Further Reading 297 Picture Acknowledgements 305 Index 307

About the Author :
JOHN GRIBBIN is one of today's most successful and prolific writers of popular science. He is the author of bestselling books, including In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, In Search of the Multiverse, and Alone in the Universe. He trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is currently a Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.