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List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £5.84
Author:
Jim al-Khalili
By Phoenix
 A quantum leap in my understanding of a tricky subject, 2007-09-17
As other reviewers have pointed out, "Quantum: A guide for the perplexed" is a superbly readable and entertaining introduction to the field of quantum mechanics. It is highly suitable for those, like me, whose knowledge of mathematics and physics is not particularly advanced.
Quantum physics being what it is, I half-expected the book to be quite difficult and dry but this is 100% not the case. Although some of the theories are tricky to grasp, the author uses a great set of analogies (along with some clever and very colourful diagrams) to convey their meaning. There is plenty of humour to keep you going as well.
After finishing the book, I'll come clean and admit that I am still not sure exactly what a wavefunction really is (then again, I'm not sure anyone does) but I do feel that I climbed a couple of rungs up the ladder of understanding. But I definitely now know what a quantum leap is and I learnt about something I had never heard of before, namely quantum tunnelling' (and why it is relevant to everyday life). I also certainly now understand the significance of what happens in the famous double-slit experiment (so next time the subject comes up in the pub, I can offer an explanation of wave-partical duality). Oh, and I solved the paradox at the heart of the `Schrodinger's cat' thought experiment. Of course I didn't actually solve it but the author gently led me there step by step and then, just at the right time, confirmed my growing suspicions. That is a clever teacher/writer in action !
The book is also superb on real-life applications of quantum understanding, such as in biology and semi-conductors, and on possible future applications such as the `quantum computer' (which could one day help Moore's law hold good for a few more years).
This is popular science, albeit on a difficult subject, at its absolute best and most entertaining.
List Price: £11.99
Our Price: £4.55
Author:
Amit Goswami
By Jeremy P Tarcher
A Forward Step for Human Kind, 2007-08-03
At last a book that coherently & convincingly binds the spiritual with the scientific. A ground breaking & immensely inspiring book - turns the lightbulb on!
List Price: £22.99
Our Price: £17.00
Author:
Alastair I. M. Rae
By Chapman & Hall
A brilliant book with updated material, 2002-07-14
This book is not only fun to read, but contains the latest material on quantum computation, quantum teleportation, and the debate over the concepts of quantum mechanics. The text is clear and sharp. Written for undergraduate students, it can be read by anybody with college math (calculus, etc.). The beauty of quantum mechanics as exposed here will certainly make sure that you will read it nearly cover to cover.
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £4.95
Author:
Roger Penrose
By Oxford Paperbacks
Great tour of physics, not sure about the metaphysics, 2008-08-15
I give this book five stars cos it occupies, along with Barrow and Tipler's The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford Paperbacks) a niche that nothing else quite does. It is on the furthest edge of popular science writing before you penetrate into the realm of the specialist. So for a person like me with undergraduate maths it gave me a lot of information without intolerable effort. It was tough going but very worthwhile. For anyone with less than A-level (I mean 70's A-level) maths though, I'd stick with the books with no equations, like the very popular A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, which I rate more as a human interest story than as an introduction to any actual cosmology.
As for Penrose's conjectures about the mental. Well, his ideas have been around for a while now and as far as I can tell have not led us to anything new. He exhibits the common fuzziness of the day, that is only really now getting tightened up on in the Philosophy of Mind literature, of conflating the problem of mentation, i.e. what goes on in the mind of a mathematician when she's having a great insight, with the problem of consciousness, i.e. what is it? They are both profound and mysterious problems but they are not the same problem, and not even necessarily related. I can still see a space for how quantum mechanical, i.e. truly random, processes might get exploited in pruning decision trees when searching a problem space, i.e. with respect the mentation problem. But how quantum randomness might contribute to consciousness seems more problematic.
The most incisive contribution to the question of consciousness I'm aware of right now is Edelman & Tononi's A Universe of Consciousness How Matter Becomes Imagination.
But this book is great for the physics, and certainly at the limits of what someone of my educational background can indulge in as a spare time activity. Penrose's next book on this topic Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness was more mathematically rigorous and lost me pretty well straight away.
List Price: £57.00
Our Price: £47.13
Author:
Paul Horowitz, Winfield Hill
By Cambridge University Press
A classic! The first serious book about electronics you should buy!, 2007-03-12
If you are thinking about buying a book about electronics don't wait any longer. It is the most popular and complete book you can have. You will find everything you may ever want to know about electronics, designing electronics circuits, calculations, etc. It is not a book for beginners, though. There are plenty of mathematics, charts, definitions. It is great as a compendium for engineers and something you should buy if you no longer want to be a beginner.
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