Quantum Mechanics and Experience

Rating:
Summary: One of several books for your QM library
Review: This book will not please everyone (this much should be clear from the reviews). Those with a weak math background will find Albert's presentation of linear algebra hard to follow, and those seeking a detailed, technical treatment will likewise be frustrated. Rather, this book seeks a middle ground. The potential reader should bear this in mind, and the potential reviewer should not blame the book for being what it is. Having said this, the book is written in a breezy style that, I suspect, closely matches the way Albert speaks; this tone is not for everyone. Albert's presentation of superposition and the measurement problem is the clearest I have seen, and this is a major attraction of the book. His solution to the measurement problem, the Many-Minds theory, is strange, but the phenomena for which it seeks to account are strange. He discusses, and finds fault with, several other interpretations in a manner that may lead the reader to delve more deeply into these rival accounts. This is good, for Albert has not written -- nor has he intended to write -- an encyclopedic tome covering the entire history of philosophical musings on this subject. This should not be the only book you read on this topic, but it is a valuable text for your collection, if for no other reason than the clear and clever way Albert details the problem of quantum mechanical collapse.

Rating:
Summary: One of several books for your QM library
Review: This book will not please everyone (this much should be clear from the reviews). Those with a weak math background will find Albert's presentation of linear algebra hard to follow, and those seeking a detailed, technical treatment will likewise be frustrated. Rather, this book seeks a middle ground. The potential reader should bear this in mind, and the potential reviewer should not blame the book for being what it is. Having said this, the book is written in a breezy style that, I suspect, closely matches the way Albert speaks; this tone is not for everyone. Albert's presentation of superposition and the measurement problem is the clearest I have seen, and this is a major attraction of the book. His solution to the measurement problem, the Many-Minds theory, is strange, but the phenomena for which it seeks to account are strange. He discusses, and finds fault with, several other interpretations in a manner that may lead the reader to delve more deeply into these rival accounts. This is good, for Albert has not written -- nor has he intended to write -- an encyclopedic tome covering the entire history of philosophical musings on this subject. This should not be the only book you read on this topic, but it is a valuable text for your collection, if for no other reason than the clear and clever way Albert details the problem of quantum mechanical collapse.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible writing style
Review: This is one of the best discussions that I have read on what Quantum Mechanics really means. He goes through the conventional interpretations and explains what is wrong with them. Read Bell's book, then read this (or the other way around).