Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics Book

Yesterday, I read some scathing comments about this book, and the closely related The Tao of Physics, in Woit's Not Even Wrong. Apparently, there used to a be an approach to quantum mechanics called S-matrix theory, which was popular among left-leaning physicists in the early 70s. Woit refers to "The People's Republic of Berkeley". It was something to do with "abolition of the aristocracy of particles", which I must say I didn't completely get, but you can see how this might appeal. As I understand it, the basic idea was not to talk about possibly intangible interactions between particles like quarks, whose existence is hard to demonstrate directly, but only about the objectively measurable scattering matrix.

Anyway, according to Woit, S-matrix theory never quite worked, and when quantum chromodynamics and the Standard Model came in, around 1974, it pretty much disappeared. But Capra, in The Tao of Physics, still clung to the S-matrix ideas, and every time the book was reprinted he would add forewords and afterwords that were more and more out of touch with reality, claiming that history had shown that the S-matrix approach was the one true way, when in fact QCD had knocked it out of the park. Then Zukav followed Capra, and wrote this book.

Woit, evidently tearing his hair out, says that both books are still selling well, and that, although S-matrix theory is now completely discredited, it embarrassingly lives on as "nutty New Age philosophy".

I read Zukav's book in the early 80s, and I wasn't that impressed, though I had no idea that it was this much at odds with mainstream physics. I thought he was just presenting mainstream ideas in a poetic way. A frightening story about how careful you need to be with popular science texts.