Quantum

Manjit Kumar

Shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2009.

Quantum theory is weird. As Niels Bohr said, if you weren't shocked by quantum theory, you didn't really understand it. For most people, quantum theory is a byword for mysterious, impenetrable science. And yet for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly-written account of this fundamental scientific revolution. But his centrepiece is the conflict between Einstein and Bohr over the nature of reality and the soul of science. A close look at the golden age of physics, the brilliant young minds at its centre-and how an idea ignited the greatest intellectual debate of the twentieth century.