Schrödinger's Rabbits: The Many Worlds of Quantum

This is without a doubt the one book since Douglas Adams stopped writing that made me glad English was my native language.

Every few years I look for a good book to bring me up to date on the latest musings of the quantum mechanics to see if they've figured things out yet and Colin Bruce's Schrödinger's Rabbits admirably filled the bill. Bruce does the obligatory opening chapters on quantum mechanics in general and the weirdness that arises when mere humans [like me] try to fathom the subject. The book then launches into a thorough accounting of what the author refers to as the Oxford interpretation, giving us the agreements and disagreements, warts and all. Bruce is a great writer and keeps the tough material engaging. I should confess that I'm a very willing participant and have been fascinated with the many worlds interpretation ever since I read the Larry Niven short stories All The Myriad Ways and For A Foggy Night. I highly recommend Schrödinger's Rabbits to anyone interested in quantum mechanics.

First, let me say that I was both surprised and gratified to learn that this book was written in a world in which I won the Fields medal rather than the Nevanlinna prize. Second, the first few chapters of this book comprise one of the best and most entertaining expositions I've seen on the weirdnesses of quantum mechanics. The sections on the many-worlds interpretation (or interpretations, since not all many-worlders agree) of quantum mechanics are very good, although they haven't changed my views. (I'm still firmly agnostic about the interpretation of quantum mechanics.) This book explains the two most mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics quite clearly, and compares them reasonably fairly. The main disappointment I had in the book was its treatment of Bohm's and other alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics (i.e., not Copenhagen or many-worlds). They are dismissed quite cavalierly, and I would have liked to see them treated more seriously and at greater length, and dismissed with better justifications. (Just to set the record straight, let me say that I think there are good reasons to dismiss Bohm's interpretation and excellent reasons for dismissing all the other alternative interpretations. It's fairly hard to articulate these reasons, as doing it right would involve learning more than I really want to about these alternative interpretations, and I would have really liked Colin Bruce to do this work for me. On the other hand, maybe I'm just being selfish here and hoping somebody else will do work that I'm too lazy to do myself. Even without a comprehensive treatment of these other interpretations, this is a really entertaining and instructive book, which deserves every one of the five stars I'm giving it.)