Questioning the Foundations of Physics: Which of Our Fundamental Assumptions Are Wrong? (The Frontiers Collection) Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2015 Edition

What a surprise I may be the first one to review this pricey book. Generally, one may regard this as serious work involving what I may refer to as ‘authoritative rumination of physics illuminati. My review is mixed: the good, the bad, and no ugly.First the good.A few weeks ago I took a trip from Norfolk-VA to Brooklyn-NY to visit my brother. In a philosophical mood or mode, I remember mentioning to him the mystery of all those atoms, and the smaller constituents like quarks therein, moving —should we say relocating- all the way from VA to NYC. But then again, some will say, it was not the atoms that moved, it was the person, a conscious I perhaps, that caused all this moving. So there are questions regarding causality here. Are these atoms (or particles or quants, what you will) dancing around on their own; or something, someone (God?) Is causing them to do all this stuff. Regarding causality of the sort I tried to express, there is plenty in this book: top-down-causality, bottom-up-causality, etc., and the active role of information, a highly glorified item since the computer revolution. As an aside, we must note the glorification of computer science concepts throughout this book; reminiscent, of course, of the glorification of pipes and valves and their use in explanation of complex phenomena during and after the industrial revolution.Next the bad.My aim in purchasing this pricey book was was to find some sensible and authoritative comments regarding the underlying premises (assumptions) behind the magic of quantum physics (theory, mechanics, dynamics, kinetics, chromodynamics. and so forth). Consider the following excerpts, with as prop estrous continuation of mystification of that field; found helpful by most readers (!):249 of 276 people found the following review helpfulThe forbidden encounter: consciousness meets the universeBy Alan F. Sewell on February 6, 2012Format: Paperback Verified PurchaseBefore reading this book my thinking on the interaction of quantum mechanics and consciousness was:1. Quantum mechanics states that "nothing exists until it is measured."2. An object can't be measured unless there is a conscious mind to measure it.3. Therefore Quantum Mechanics implies that consciousness (God) created the universe.To the underlying quoted assumption “nothing exists until it is measured.” (which prompted Einstein to quip: does the moon not exist if I am not looking at it, etc.), we may add other, less easily discernible, silly premises used as foundation of quantum physics, such as: If there is a probability distribution regarding where a particle is located, why not assume it is omnipresent everywhere (and hence the superposition or worse the much revered uncertainty principle). Here is another hilarious example. AMC Theater’s claim to have 24 units, say 12 on each side (we are simplifying here!). If a movie is not playing on one wing, it is easy to claim it must be playing on the other wing. Ok, so let’s complicate this a bit more, and say there are probabilities involved. The very same logic easily applies or should apply. As far as we are concerned, the other wing could be on the other side of Canary Islands, or to be more dramatic, at the far end of Milky Way Galaxy. Hence, the ‘entanglement!’. Consider a probabilistic queueing situation where, as generally assumed, the arrivals obey Poisson probability law. It could be any duration, probabilistically, until the next arrival. Do we then conclude that the arrivals are anywhere and everywhere during that interval? What if someone observes an actual arrival at certain specific time? Then we would claim the arrival ‘collapsed’ into reality because someone observed it. You see where this is going to. A qubit, if you look it up, is a bit that has both 0 and 1 values at the same time! When you observe the 1-bit register, you will get either 0 or 1, and not both. All this magic because: You assumed that nothing exists until it is measured (or observed). Does this make sense?Being closely familiar with probability theory and applications, j’accuse quantum folks, especially the so called Bohr group, for playing hard and fast with simple probability outcomes and turning it into some magical fairy tales. One other thing: almost all the ’scientific’ journals, such as New Scientist, Discover, etc. credit quantum theory for just about every technological marvels we happen to have, like computer processors, lasers, cell phones and what not. That is far away from the truth. Based on wrong premises, quantum theory can never lead to any technological breakthroughs or gadgets. Quantum computing, not in your life time, or mine for that matter. A qubit, if you look it up, is a bit that has both 0 and 1 values at the same time! When you observe the 1-bit register, you will get either 0 or 1, and not both. Then you will pat yourself in the back and say the qubit collapsed into 0 or 1. All this magic because: You assumed that nothing exists until it is measured (or observed). Does this make sense? Duh..Finally, in this regard, premises do matter a lot, even if all the conclusions appear to be perfectly logical and very promising, like using qubits for quantum computers. A good example of proving that 2 is equal to 3 can be found in P.H. Winston’s classical text http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-3rd-Winston/dp/0201533774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431112931&sr=8-1&keywords=p.h.+winston

This is NOT a review of the contents of this book. This is about the manufacturing quality of the books by the major publishing houses Amazon sells as new. All the books published by the Springer Verlag, CUP, OUP, Palgrave, and other publishers are reprinted here in the US. They are not the original publishers' prints. The printing quality of these reprints, in particular the binding, is awful. Printed (sometimes electronically) on a thin paper, the glued binding is so tight you can't open them flat unless you want to break the binding. They reprint the original titles in black and white while the original printings have pictures in color. A photo on pages 192 and 194 of this title came as a black rectangular with the captions saying about color-coded particle trajectories on the photos detailing a complex dynamics of the event discussed in the text on these pages. And this is a science book where details are very important, not a novel.