Conversations with the Sphinx: Paradoxes in Physics

"The path of paradox is the path of truth," said Oscar Wilde, and as this lively and fascinating book reveals, nowhere is this maxim more appropriate than in the field of physics. Against all the dictates of the very lifeblood of science, the means by which a theory can be proved; without them science would wither and die. Etienne Klien is that rarity, a scientist who is equally at home in the world of literature and philosophy. Writing for those with no more than a general knowledge of scientific concepts he draws analogies from the ancient Greeks to the fables of La Fontaine, from Baudelaire to George Bernard Shaw, as he explores the nature of paradox and its ability to cast light on an apparently insuperable problem in the world of physics. Scietists and non scientists alike will delight in his analyses of seven major paradoxes: the problem of wave-particle duality, the paradox of the twins in special relativity, the paradox of the dark night in cosmology, the paradox of Schrodinger's cat in quantum physics, the famous EPR paradox which Einstein set against the current interpretations of quantum mechanics, the violation of parity in particle physics and the paradox of the irreversibility of time. His fresh approach and avoidance of mathematical formulae not only present these problems in an entirely new way, but enable any reader to understand and enjoy them. The discoveries of science are vital to our knowledge and understnding of the cosmos and the role we play in it. Through this stimulating book all readers will learn to look with new eyes at concepts they may have thought beyond their ability to grasp. --- from book's dustjacket