Patterns of Symmetry Breaking Book

This book sounded so great when I first picked it up. Not quite I'm afraid. Here's the idea: To show how some famous people have incorporated quantum theory. He includes the Dalai Lama, W. H. Auden, Tom Stoppard, and Lawrence Durrell. He does a lot of name dropping, as in so and so is "my friend" or how he spent dinner with someone. I mean he does that a lot.

The Dalai Lam and Karl Popper talked about Popper's theory of falsifiability. No number of confirmations suffices to prove a theory, but it takes only one failed prediction to disprove it. The problem with such a belief is that it gives the ignorant a chance to discount any and every thing.

The famous double slit experiments with electrons lead to much misinformation. Some popular books show that electrons can be in two spots at once. This is a misunderstanding of a remark by Kerner: "An electron can be here or there at the same moment." The key word is "or". The electron cannot be in both places at the same time. Try telling that to the New Age weirdos who have taken that up as their mantra.

Many non-physicists, especially those with a penchant for Eastern mysticism, jump to the conclusion that all is one and that quantum mechanics implies consciousness in the universe. That is not an accepted conclusion.

Here's a joke about it: Man to psychiatrist: "Doc, my brother needs help. He thinks he's a chicken." Doc to man: "Why don't you show that he isn't?" Man to Doc: "I would, but I need the eggs."

John Stewart Bell became disillusioned with philosophy because he thought all philosophers did was disagree with each other. No disagreement from me on that one. So he pursued physics.

The New Agers have twisted Bell's theorems. Here is an example: A website called "Shamanic Healing: Why It Works. In it a Shaman tries to "take this cancer out of this boy."

I love that the author blasts the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? Typically, it takes quantum theory and mixes in nonsense. For example, it talks about "freedom being interwoven into human nature."

Finally, there is a story about the great four books of The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. The first stories are from three different points of view to match up with the three dimensions. The fourth book represents the fourth dimension. Weird, but cool. Now that was a great work of literature.