Who's Afraid of Schrodinger's Cat : All The New Science Ideas You Need To Keep Up With The New Thinking

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Summary: Marshall, Zohar, and Peat's (MZP) Schrodinger's Cat
Review: Although this is a popular science book, it is, as the Editor has indicated, extremely well organized and categorized. In fact, I have seldom seen a book organized to this degree. It compares and distinguishes ("discriminates") concepts which are easily confused with each other and which are seldom compared. This process of comparison in psychology is called DISCRIMINATION, and I want to put in a few good words in favor of it. I have urged readers in some of my other reviews of make flash cards based on books in order to better understand them, but nothing works as well as flash cards based on discrimination between concepts that are similar or in a similar category. I will try to do more justice to the contents in a later review, but this book is the place to start large-scale discrimination.

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Summary: An essential read for those trying to grasp the New Sciences
Review: Got this book on a whim. Turned out to be an outstanding book that for those steeped in the sciences, will find it nice to read from cover to cover. For others, it is an invaluable refernce guide.

The authors have done a great job of writing the introductory pieces that fit beautifully. Initially, I put the book down after these essays, content in understanding thier thoughts on various aspects of the sciences. Later, I delved into the various terms that they have elaborated upon and found them immensely useful.

Coming from the biomedical side, I'd have preferred a bit more information on biotechnology and medicine than what it covers, (hence the 4 stars).

I highly recommend it to anyone with more than a mild curiosity in what is going on in the current sciences.

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Summary: Misleading
Review: I am scientist at the European Patent Office. I do not often read very popular books but came accross that one. It succeeds in explaining many things easily, however it is very inaccurate and unreliable, there is an average of one fatal, major mistake per page, both concerning the interpretation, or the history of the experimental sciences, etc. The book has also very strong New Age bias in its use of modern physics, etc. It may be recommandable for New Agers, but for other readers I would rather recommend searching another book, I assume there are some reliable introductory books on the market.

If on one hand as I was saddened by all the mistakes in the book, on the other hand I found some funny (e. g. that the medieval scientists believed that the planets and stars were alive or inhabited by gods, etc.)

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Summary: Easy read...piqued my interest to want to know more!
Review: I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand concepts without having a scientific background or vocabulary. And, for those of us that do, it's a great review of areas of science outside our sphere.

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Summary: Could not put it down!
Review: I recieved this book on a Tuesday. I couldn't stop picking it up until Friday. Even now I still have it out on my desk. This isn't the type of book that you'll want to read from front to back at one sitting. Its a good reference book and an outstanding introductory book to not only the new style of physics, but physics in general.

The meat of the book does exactly what it says, it introduces the reader to the most advanced scientific principles of today. However, what I became even more interested in, (although I was plenty interested in the new ideas) was the epistimological difference between newtonian physics and quantum physics. In sparked in me an interest into the philosophy of science.

The length of the definitions of the ideas range from a half a page to three and a half pages. There is somewhere around 200 different "new ideas" of science that it introduces. All the definitions are written well with exceptional clarity, (which I was glad to see because I would of been lost otherwise.)

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Summary: I'm not Afraid of Schrodinger's Cat.
Review: I used to be afraid of schrodingers cat but now hee's my frien

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Summary: What determines your reality?
Review: Reading this book has reawakened an interest in me to learning about math and physics. Though the book does not delve into the mathematics of the topics discussed, it provides a clear, well-sculpted image of each, meant for the lay-reader. It is particularly exciting to me because the ideas explained in "Who's Afraid of Schrodinger's Cat?" are revolutionizing the way that humans view their world, their perspective in it, and, as is necessary to address at such a philosophical level, our possible purpose for being in it. The resulting conclusions from comtemporary physics are profound and inspiring, presented in this book, fittingly, in a non-linear, or 'quantum', fashion, so that the reader is brought to an understanding of the ideas presented by the greatest scientific minds of our century with an open mind leaping at the possibilities and thought-provoking implications of it all. This book makes a great introductory gate-way to its subject and a very convenient reference work (for the second read that is virtually necessary and equally profound). I am eager to explore other works by the authors.

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Summary: Good briefing for the timid or the compulsively curious
Review: This book marvelously accomplishes its objective: providing in easily digested bites a concise reference to major recent (past couple of decades) developments in mathematics and science that are significantly affecting technology and society, frequently across multiple disciplines. In addition, a 30-page introductory section describes the mosaic of which the individual entries are pieces.

Unfortunately, it lacks a bibliography or list of suggested further reading. With on average a 1.5 page description devoted to roughly 200 topics with lots of internal cross-references, this book would make an ideal web site. On paper, it is organized alphabetically by topic, which is convenient for looking things up, but not necessarily for browsing, which is what the curious will find themselves doing compulsively.

Like with a good encyclopedia, you might open the book expecting to read just one or two entries, and then find yourself following the plentiful cross-references or just what catches your eye, till you've read half the book. If you've been hearing terms like game theory, nano-machines, super-strings, sociobiology, quarks, chaos and complexity theory tossed around but were too embarrassed to ask for an explanation, this book will help build your confidence.

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Summary: Terrific layman's guide to the latest scientific theories
Review: This is a great science book for the non-scientific type. It makes very obtuse theories and concepts crystal clear for the lay reader, and brings science to the masses *without dumbing it down.* It reminds me a lot of Charles Osgood's marvelous series "A Science Odyssey" that aired on PBS a few years back. (See my separate review on that for even more raves about science for the layperson without dumbing it down.)

Entries are brief, and sometimes I wish there were more detail. As another reviewer points out, references for further reading would be nice as well. However, if you're puzzled but intrigued by such topics as "String Theory," "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle" and "Chaos Theory," and all you know about this stuff comes from Star Trek-type shows, this is a great book for you. It also demonstrates, as the late Carl Sagan used to say, that science is far stranger, far more mysterious and far more subtle than science fiction. So much of the material covered simply seems unbelievable, but it has been tested. The quantum world in particular is a strange place, where Lewis Carroll would have been right at home.

Highly recommended, for science and non-science types alike.


Rating:
Summary: No uncertainly here--This book is great
Review: This is a great science book for the non-scientific type. It makes very obtuse theories and concepts crystal clear for the lay reader, and brings science to the masses *without dumbing it down.* It reminds me a lot of Charles Osgood's marvelous series "A Science Odyssey" that aired on PBS a few years back. (See my separate review on that for even more raves about science for the layperson without dumbing it down.)

Entries are brief, and sometimes I wish there were more detail. As another reviewer points out, references for further reading would be nice as well. However, if you're puzzled but intrigued by such topics as "string theory," "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle" and "Chaos Theory," and all you know about this stuff comes from Star Trek-type shows, this is a great book for you. It also demonstrates, as the late Carl Sagan used to say, that science is far stranger, far more mysterious and far more subtle than science fiction.