Long-listed for the PEN / E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Short-listed for Physics World's 2016 Book of the Year
Ten Physics Books of 2015, Symmetry Magazine
The Science Books We Loved Most in 2015, Gizmodo
Best Astronomy and Astrophysics Books, Space.com
“An important book that provides insight into key new developments in our understanding of the nature of space, time and the universe. It will repay careful study.” —John Gribbin, The Wall Street Journal
“Musser deftly traces the history of our quest to understand this curious phenomenon, covering an ambitious breadth of challenging topics from string theory to the multiverse to the unification of physics.” —Science
“[An] enlightening (and highly entertaining) book, one that takes us beyond earlier popular treatments into the speculative thickets of contemporary physics.” —Jim Holt, The New York Review of Books
“A good science writer has to show us the fallible men and women who made the theory, and then show us why, after the human foibles are boiled off, the theory remains reliable. No well-tested scientific concept is more astonishing than the one that gives its name to a new book by the Scientific American contributing editor George Musser, Spooky Action at Distance. The ostensible subject is the mechanics of quantum entanglement; the actual subject is the entanglement of its observers. Musser presents the hard-to-grasp physics of 'non-locality,' and his question isn't so much how this weird thing can be true as why, given that this weird thing has been known about for so long, so many scientists were so reluctant to confront it.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
“A highly enjoyable tour-de-force . . . Amid the superb writing here is a lot of information that will bring you up to date on everything you should know about this compelling mystery . . . this book will be one of the reading highlights of your year.” —David Eicher, Astronomy magazine
“Ambitious . . . the author has done a monumental job of translating recondite theory into laymen's terms.” —Laurence A. Marschall, Natural History
“In this polished study of the concept that Albert Einstein dubbed 'spooky action at a distance', science writer George Musser tours the entangled research, history and philosophical speculation surrounding it . . .
proving that this is one of the most engrossing disputes in science.” —Nature
“Musser explores the history of humans grappling with nonlocality and what these strange effects are teaching quantum mechanics researchers, astronomers, cosmologists and more about how the universe works—and while doing so, showing the messy, nonlinear and fascinating way researchers push forward to understand the physical world.” —Sarah Lewin, Space.com
“The journalistic style of this book is smooth and pleasing, rich with personal interviews that touch on the inner workings of researchers, and vignettes from contributors’ lives to add colour. Musser is a witty writer . . . As an experimental physicist, I certainly learned a lot, and am armed with new visual metaphors and fresh insight into an often perplexing field.” —James Millen, Physics World
“I join many others in regarding Musser as one of the best science writers covering cutting-edge physics research . . . His book contains fascinating, mind-expanding ideas, and I’ve been thinking about them for days on end.” —Ben P. Stein, Inside Science
“An endlessly surprising foray into the current mother of physics' many knotty mysteries, the solving of which may unveil the weirdness of quantum particles, black holes, and the essential unity of nature.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Accessible and imaginative . . . Clarity and humor illuminate Musser’s writing, and he adroitly captures the excitement and frustration involved in investigating the mysteries of our universe.” —Publishers Weekly
“Can two subatomic particles on opposite sides of the universe truly be instantaneously connected? Or is any theory that predicts such a connection necessarily flawed or incomplete? Are the results of experiments that demonstrate such a connection being misinterpreted? Such questions challenge our most basic concepts of spatial distance and time. In Spooky Action At A Distance, George Musser beautifully navigates through the history, science, and philosophy of these mind-boggling conundrums, and expounds cutting edge thinking.” —Mario Livio, astrophysicist and bestselling author of Brilliant Blunders and The Golden Ratio
“George Musser gives us a fascinating tour of the latest attempts on the frontiers of physics to answer one of the oldest questions in science: What is space? And the wonderful lesson is that the deeper we look into the question, the more captivating it becomes.” —Lee Smolin, founding faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and author of The Trouble with Physics
“With clever metaphors and dry humor, acclaimed science communicator George Musser is the perfect tour guide on this wild ride through wormholes and emergent dimensions to the cutting edge of physics. This quest to understand the ultimate nature of space may forever transform how you think about the very fabric of reality.” —Max Tegmark, physicist and author of Our Mathematical Universe
“Modern physics is in the process of dismantling the very space all around us, and the universe will never be the same. In this engaging book, George Musser leads us through the thickets of science and philosophy and takes us to the brink of a very different view of the world.” —Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology and author of The Particle at the End of the Universe
“Locality has been a fruitful and reliable principle, guiding us to the triumphs of twentieth-century physics. Yet the consequences of local laws in quantum theory can seem 'spooky' and nonlocal-and some theorists are questioning locality itself. Spooky Action at a Distance is a lively introduction to these fascinating paradoxes and speculations.” —Frank Wilczek, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and author of The Lightness of Being and A Beautiful Question
★ 2015-07-27
Two particles behave identically and instantaneously though separated by great space and with no force passing between them. How? Award-winning Scientific American contributing editor Musser (The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory, 2008) probes the riddle. Locality was the bedrock of physics for centuries. "It means that everything has a place. You can always point to an object and say, ‘Here it is.' If you can't, that thing must really not exist," writes the author in this anything-but-simple story of nonlocality. Einstein understood locality as both separability—things in separate places have independent existences—and local action: objects interact by striking one another or intermediarily. Musser covers the evolution of physics' method of physical inquiry, "driven by the conviction that the universe is within the human power to understand," with comprehensible rules and a history of systematic investigation for reference: from Zeno and Democritus to Newton, who turned inquiry—and locality—on its head. Newton couldn't explain gravity, but his equations proved out. Now, writes Musser, "modern physicists think of any theory as having two separate functions. First, the theory should provide a mathematical description....Second, the theory should provide an ‘interpretation' of the formulas: a compelling picture of what's going on…." But the second part is flexible enough that physicists can "kick away the interpretation and let the equations stand on their own." Much the same can be said about the entire quantum revolution and certainly nonlocality: locality may be a precondition for relativity, but there are enough instances of flabbergasting nonlocality to suggest that space is simply a convenient notion to describe order. With brio and dash, Musser navigates the difficult science and also introduces interesting characters such as Michael Heller, "a physicist, philosopher, and priest" at Krakow's Pontifical Academy of Theology, and theorist Nima Arkani-Hamed, winner of the 2012 Fundamental Physics Prize. An endlessly surprising foray into the current mother of physics' many knotty mysteries, the solving of which may unveil the weirdness of quantum particles, black holes, and the essential unity of nature.