The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics

by Kakalios, James

  Writing a popular science book about quantum mechanics has been a challenging exercise, as it is very easy to trip up and misrepresent essential aspects of the theory in attempting to simplify the material for the non-expert. I am deeply grateful for the efforts of Benjamin Bayman, who read the entire manuscript in draft form and provided valuable feedback and corrections. In addition, William Zimmermann, E. Dan Dahlberg, Michel Janssen, Bruce Hammer, and Marco Peloso read portions of the text and I thank them for their insights and suggestions, along with the helpful comments of Yong-Zhong Qian, Paul Crowell, John Broadhurst, Allen Gold-man, and Roger Stuewer. I thank Bruce Hammer for the magnetic resonance image in Chapter 19. Any errors or confusing arguments that remain are solely my responsibility.

  I am also grateful to Gotham Books in general, and my editor Patrick Mulligan in particular, for the opportunity to share with you the cool and practical field of quantum mechanics and its applications in nuclear and solid-state physics. Patrick’s guidance during the writing and editing of this book has yielded a dramatically improved text, and his support from the very beginning in this book made it possible. The contributions of the copyeditor, Eileen Chetti, did much to improve the readability of the final manuscript. Michael Koelsch has done a wonderful job on the cover illustration and Elke Sigal on the book design. Christopher Jones did a fantastic job on the line drawings, beautifully illustrating complex ideas throughout the book. Thanks also to Alex Schumann and Brian Andersson for the electron and laser diffraction photos, and the pencil-in-glass shot (with thanks to Eric Matthies for the Jon Osterman pencil). Some of the science fiction magazines cited here were procured from Kayo Books in San Francisco, California, a great resource for all things pulpy. Travers Johnson at Gotham and Jake Sugarman at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment were of great help throughout the difficult process of seeing the manuscript from rough first draft through to its final state. My agent, Jay Mandel, has always had my back, and his insights, advice and encouragement throughout this project have been crucial. He’s been there from the start and every step of the way.

  This book could not have been written without the limitless support and patience of my wife, Therese; and children, Thomas, Laura, and David, who graciously gave up their time with me while I was writing this book. I am grateful to Carolyn and Doug Kohrs for their friendship and support long before and throughout the writing of two books, and to Camille and Geoff Nash, who have always been there through thick and thin.

  As I struggled with the early drafts of the manuscript, the editing advice, research and counsel of my son Thomas and wife, Therese, have been invaluable. I am proud and honored to thank them for their hard work and encouragement. I have been luckiest of all to benefit from my family’s love and support. I know that the future will exceed the predictions of the sunniest, most optimistic science fiction, as long as I share it with them.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  xi “well into the twenty-first century, we still await flying cars, jet packs”: Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of Our Fantastic Future, Eric Dregni and Jonathan Dregni (Speck Press, 2006).

  xii “consider the long-term data storage accomplished by the Sumerians”: Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, A. Leo Oppenheim (University of Chicago Press, 1964); The Sumerians, C. Leonard Woolley (W. W. Norton and Co., 1965).

  xii “In 1965 Gordon Moore noted”: The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution, T. R. Reid (Random House, 2001).

  CHAPTER 1

  2 Amazing Stories: Cheap Thrills, The Amazing! Thrilling! Astounding! History of Pulp Fiction, Ron Goulart (Hermes, 2007).

  3 “at the German Physical Society, Max Planck”: Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, George Gamow (Dover, 1985).

  3 “Buck Rogers first appeared in the science fiction pulp Amazing Stories”: Science Fiction of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History, Frank M. Robinson (Collectors Press, 1999).

  3 “or what publisher Hugo Gernsback called ‘scientifiction’”: Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, James Gunn (Prentice-Hall, 1975).

  3 “Given the amazing pace of scientific progress”: See, for example, The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers, Tom Standage (Berkley Books, 1998); Electric Universe: How Electricity Switched on the Modern World, David Bodanis (Three Rivers Press, 2005).

  4 “a revolution in physics occurred”: Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, George Gamow (Dover, 1985).

  5 “‘It is a great source of satisfaction to us’”: “The Rise of Scientification,” Hugo Gernsback, Amazing Stories Quarterly 1, 2 (Experimenter Publishing, Spring 1928).

  6 “As Edward O. Wilson once cautioned”: “The Drive to Discovery,” Edward O. Wilson, American Scholar (Autumn 1984).

  6 “Jules Verne considered the most extraordinary voyage of all”: Paris in the Twentieth Century, Jules Verne (Random House, 1996).

  9 “In one participant’s recollection, Bohr proposed a theoretical model”: Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, George Gamow (Dover, 1985).

  11 “Faraday was the first to suggest that electric charges and magnetic materials”: Electric Universe: How Electricity Switched on the Modern World, David Bodanis (Three Rivers Press, 2005).

  CHAPTER 2

  13 “The Skylark of Space,” Edward Elmer Smith, with Lee Hawkins Garby (uncredited) (The Buffalo Book Co., 1946); first serialized in Amazing Stories, 1928.

  15 “this theory predicted results that were nonsensical”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  16 “Planck firmly believed that light was a continuous electromagnetic wave”: The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone, Kenneth W. Ford (Harvard University Press, 2004).

  16 “In the late 1800s, physicists had discovered that certain materials”: The Strange Story of the Quantum, 2nd edition, Banesh Hoffman (Dover, 1959).

  16 (footnote) “George Gamow, brilliant physicist and famed practical joker”: Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes, Walter Gratzer (Oxford University Press, 2002).

  17 “Lenard was working at the University of Heidelberg”: Quantum Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe, Barry Parker (Prometheus Books, 2002).

  22 “When Einstein wrote his paper on the ‘photoelectric’ effect”: Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson (Simon and Schuster, 2007).

  23 “Fortunately for Einstein”: Quantum Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe, Barry Parker (Prometheus Books, 2002).

  23 “Millikan was one of the most careful and gifted experimentalists of his day”: Ibid.

  25 “Technically, a photon is defined as”: “Light Reconsidered,” Arthur Zajone, in OPN Trends, supplement to Optics and Photonic News ed. by Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri and Rajarshi Roy, 14, S-2 (2003).

  26 “As Albert Einstein reflected, ‘All the fifty years of conscious brooding’”: “The first phase of the Bohr-Einstein dialogue,” Martin J. Klein, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 2, 1 (1970).

  CHAPTER 3

  27 Science Wonder Stories (Stellar Publishing Company, Feb. 1930).

  29 “Goddard was an early example of a prominent scientist”: Different Engines: How Science Drives Fiction and Fiction Drives Science, Mark L. Brake and Neil Hook (Macmillan, 2008).

  31 “In 1923, Prince Louis de Broglie”: The Story of Quantum Mechanics, Victor Guillemin (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968) ; Physics and Microphysics, Louis de Broglie (Pantheon, 1955).

  34 “These crystalline arrangements of atoms can be used as atomic-scale ‘oil slicks’”: Men Who Made a New Physics, Barbara Lovett Cline (University of Chicago Press, 1987).

  CHAPTER 4

  38 “Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster eventually sold their story”: Men of
Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book, Gerald Jones (Basic Books, 2004).

  38 “As Jules Feiffer argued”: The Great Comic Book Heroes, Jules Feiffer (Bonanza Books, 1965).

  39 “It was proposed in 1925 that every fundamental particle behaves as if it is a spinning top”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  40-41 “Air Wonder Stories”: Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines, Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson (Collectors Press, 1998).

  42 “In Isaac Asimov’s novel”: Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain, Isaac Asimov (Doubleday, 1987).

  43 (footnote) “When I described Asimov’s suggestion in my 2005 book”: Civil War Files, Mark O’English (Marvel Comics, Sept. 2006).

  44 “Does the experimentally observed magnetic field of electrons”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  45 “Two Dutch students in Leiden, Samuel Goudsmit and George Uhlenbeck, wrote a paper in 1925”: Ibid.

  45 “‘young enough to be able to afford a stupidity’”: “George Uhlenbeck and the Discovery of Electron Spin,” Abraham Pais, Physics Today (December 1989); The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics, Max Jammer (McGraw-Hill, 1966).

  CHAPTER 5

  51 “In 1958, Jonathan Osterman”: Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons (DC Comics, 1986, 1987).

  51 “In addition to electromagnetism, the intrinsic field must be comprised of forces”: The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone, Kenneth W. Ford (Harvard University Press, 2004).

  52 “The neutron, discovered in 1932”: The Atom and Its Nucleus, George Gamow (Prentice Hall, 1961).

  52 (footnote) “when Guido, a superstrong member of a team of superpowered mutants”: X-Factor # 72, written by Peter David and drawn by Larry Stroman (Marvel Comics, Nov. 1991).

  56 “At the start of the twentieth century, physicists debated”: Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, George Gamow (Dover, 1985).

  57 (footnote) “to quote Krusty the Clown”: The Simpsons, episode # 3F08, “Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaning,” written by Spike Ferensten and directed by Dominic Polcino (Nov. 1995).

  57 “An important step in reconciling this puzzle was Niels Bohr’s suggestion in 1913”: Niels Bohr: A Centenary Volume, edited by A. P. French and P. J. Kennedy (Harvard University Press, 1985).

  59 “This newly detected element was named helium”: Helium: Child of the Sun, Clifford W. Seibel (University Press of Kansas, 1968); Reading the Mind of God: In Search of the Principle of Universality, James Trefil (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1989).

  60 Strange Adventures # 62, “The Fireproof Man,” written by John Broome and drawn by Carmine Infantino (DC Comics, Nov. 1955).

  60 (footnote) Seduction of the Innocent, Frederic Wertham (Rinehart Press, 1953).

  62 “Following a seminar presentation by Schrödinger of the ‘standing wave’ model of electrons in an atom”: Schrödinger: Life and Thought, Walter Moore (Cambridge University Press, 1989); Quantum Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe, Barry Parker (Prometheus Books, 2002).

  CHAPTER 6

  65 (footnote) “Historians of science debate to this day the identity of the woman”: Schrödinger: Life and Thought, Walter Moore (Cambridge University Press, 1989); Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics, Gino Segre (Viking, 2007).

  68 “When Schrödinger first solved this equation for the hydrogen atom”: Men Who Made a New Physics, Barbara Lovett Cline (University of Chicago Press, 1987).

  71 “One intriguing consequence of the Schrödinger equation”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  72 “Schrödinger’s equation destroyed the notion”: Men Who Made a New Physics, Barbara Lovett Cline (University of Chicago Press, 1987).

  CHAPTER 7

  74 “Heisenberg’s struggle to envision what the electron was doing”: Quantum Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe, Barry Parker (Prometheus Books, 2002).

  75 “In 1925 Heisenberg exiled himself to the German island of Helgoland”: Ibid.

  79 “It is the standard deviations of these two bell-shaped curves”: The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone, Kenneth W. Ford (Harvard University Press, 2004).

  82 “explains why scientists are concerned about an increase in the average global temperature of a few degrees”: Potential Impacts of Climate Change in the United States, CBO Paper (Congressional Budget Office, May 2009).

  83 “Fresh snow reflects 80 to 90 percent of all sunlight”: Energy in Nature and Society, Vaclav Smil (MIT Press, 2008).

  CHAPTER 8

  85 “Dr. Manhattan”: Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons (DC Comics, 1986, 1987).

  85 “The quantum mechanical wave function contains all the information”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  88 (figure caption) Image adapted from The Atom and Its Nucleus, George Gamow (Prentice Hall, 1961).

  89 “this ‘leakage effect’ is observed for electrons”: The Atom and Its Nucleus, George Gamow (Prentice Hall, 1961); Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, George Gamow (Dover, 1985).

  90 “the Schrödinger equation is linear”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  91 “‘nothing ever ends’”: Watchmen # 12, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons (DC Comics, Oct. 1987).

  91 “Dave Gibbons, the artist of Watchmen, once stated in a radio interview”: Interview with Dave Gibbons and James Kakalios, Minnesota Public Radio, Science Friday, hosted by Ira Flatow, March 27, 2009.

  92 “they emit electromagnetic radiation in the blue-ultraviolet portion of the spectrum”: Introduction to High Energy Physics, 2nd edition, Donald H. Perkins (Addison-Wesley, 1982).

  94 “then as the wave function contains all the information”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  95-96 “One interpretation was provided by Hugh Everett III”: The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, edited by Bryce S. DeWitt and Neill Graham (Princeton University Press, 1973); The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III, Peter Byrne (Oxford University Press, 2010).

  96 Flatland, Edwin Abbott (Seely and Co., 1884).

  96 “The Fifth Dimensional Catapult,” Murray Leinster, first published in Astounding (January 1931).

  96 “Plattner’s Story,” H. G. Wells, from Thirty Strange Stories (Harper and Bros., 1897).

  96 “The Remarkable Case of Davidson’s Eyes,” H. G. Wells, from The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents (Methuen, 1895).

  CHAPTER 9

  101 “joined by the refrain of ‘tic, tic, tic’”: “Tic, Tic, Tic,” sung by Doris Day in My Dream Is Yours (Warner Bros., 1949), music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Ralph Blaine.

  101 The Atomic Kid (Republic Pictures, 1954), written by Blake Edwards, Benedict Freedman, and John Fenton Murray and directed by Leslie H. Martinson.

  101-102 The Beast of Yucca Flats, written and directed by Coleman Francis (Image Entertainment, 1961).

  102 “the true effects of radiation exposure were publicly known”: “Hiroshima,” John Hersey, The New Yorker, August 31, 1946, reprinted in Reporting World War II: American Journalism 1938-1946 (Library of America, 1995).

  102 “The 1957 television program Disneyland featured Dr. Heinz Haber”: The Walt Disney Story of Our Friend the Atom, Heinz Haber (Dell Publishing, 1956).

  102 Across the Space Frontier, edited by Cornelius Ryan, written by Werhner Von Braun, Oscar Schachter, and Willy Ley and illustrated by Chesley
Bonestell (Viking, 1952).

  103 “In 1957 Ford proposed a car called the Nucleon,”: Alien Hand Syndrome, Alan Bellows (Workman Publishing Co., 2009).

  103 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne (Dodo Press, 2007).

  104 (footnote) “The sponsor for the Disneyland program”: Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (Houghton Mifflin, 2004).

  104 “When Erenst Rutherford’s lab conducted experiments”: The Atom and Its Nucleus, George Gamow (Prentice Hall, 1961); Quantum Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe, Barry Parker (Prometheus Books, 2002).

  105 “For a while, physicists thought that the nucleus contained both protons and electrons”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  106 (footnote) “To maintain stability in a nucleus requires a critical balance of the number of neutrons and protons”: Ibid.

  107 “A dictionary from the end of the nineteenth century”: The Walt Disney Story of Our Friend the Atom, Heinz Haber (Dell Publishing, 1956).

  107 “In 1937 Italian physicist Enrico Fermi”: The Atom and Its Nucleus, George Gamow (Prentice Hall, 1961).

  110 “Gilbert’s U-238 Atomic Energy Lab”: created by Alfred Carlton Gilbert (founder of the Gilbert Hall of Science in New York City in 1941), with consultation with the physics faculty at MIT (1951).

  110 Learn How Dagwood Splits the Atom, written by John Dunning and Louis Heil and drawn by Joe Musial (King Features Syndicate, 1949).