The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics (40 page)

While the scientist as world-saving hero is a caricature, I hope that I have convinced you that the scientist as world-
changing
hero is a pretty apt description for the physicists who developed the field of quantum mechanics. In this, these investigators followed a trail blazed hundreds of years ago. For science has
always
changed the future. Technological innovations, from movable type to steam engines to wireless radio to laptop computers, have time and again profoundly altered interactions among people, communities, and nations.

Discoveries in one field of science enable breakthroughs in oth- ers. The elucidation of the structure of DNA resulted from the interpretation of X-ray scattering data. This technique of X-ray spectroscopy was developed, through the application of quantum mechanics, to facilitate the study of crystalline structures by solid-state physicists. The deciphering of the human genome is inconceivable without the use of high-speed computers and data storage that rely on the transistor, invented over fifty years ago by scientists at Bell Labs. Using the tools developed by physicists in the last century, biologists in this century are poised to enact their own scientific revolution. Time will tell whether years from now another book will describe how “biologists changed the future.” But one thing is for sure—we will not be able to embrace and participate in that future without the discipline, curiosity, questioning, and reasoning that science requires. And if Orrgo the Unconquerable (
Strange Tales
# 90) ever returns, we’ll be ready!

Figure 52:
The final panel from
Tales to Astonish
# 13, showing Evans’s reward for challenging Groot—the beginning of a “new, and better life” in which his wife “would never complain about [him] again!”

Sometimes, as the saying goes, the very best plan is to be lucky. I have been fortunate to have excellent professors when learning quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and solid-state physics in college and graduate school. The first course I had in quantum physics was taught by Prof. Timothy Boyer, whose classroom instruction provided an excellent foundation in the topic while his research in developing a non-quantum explanation for atomic behavior (involving classical electrodynamics coupled with a zero-point radiation field) demonstrated that there was more than one way to view and account for natural phenomena. I am also happy to thank Herman Cummins, Fred W. Smith, Kenneth Rubin, William Miller, Robert Alfano, Robert Sachs, Leo Kadanoff, Hellmut Fritzsche, Sidney Nagel, and Robert Street, who taught me, in the classroom and out, about this fascinating field of physics and its many applications. My students at the University of Minnesota have been the inspiration and motivation for many of the examples presented here.

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.

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).

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).

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).

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).

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).

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