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Most of this well-written book is an introduction to the history of
quantuum mechanics, extremely accessible yet entertaining.  Delve deep into the
history of the ideas, the personalities, and the processes.

The first three parts deal with the basic issues such as atoms and how they
came to be accepted - it was initially opposed by people like Ernst Mach
because no one had ever seen one (p.51) - how far have we travelled in
science today!  The next section deals with ideas de Broglie,
Schroedinger's equation, wave-particle duality, and the quantum view of an
atom. The third part deals with the effects explained by quantum mechanics,
particularly the sub-nuclear phenomena.  The final part is more reflective,
dealing with broader themes of how scientists make their discoveries, and
draws this beautiful connection with art - in the end, scientific
discoveries are more about the processes of art than of science.

Science and art (p. 278)

The limitations of science are the most evident in attempts to use scientific
methods to unveil the secrets of art. Science 'knows everything' about the
grand piano: the number, quality and length of its strings; the species of
wood used; the composition of the glue, and the finest details of its
design. Nevertheless, it is unable to explain what happens to this polished
box when a virtuoso sits down to play. Perhaps this is even unnecessary. A
person crying over a book does not usually concern himself with the means the
author used to achieve this effect. He can, of course, at a later date read a
critical work, twice as thick, on the book that has impressed him so. This
all, however, will resemble an autopsy, a thing necessary for specialists but
extremely unpleasant for most people. Marcus Aurelius wrote that 'to despise
songs and dances, it is sufficient to decompose them into their component
elements'. But Art is wise - through all the ages it has guarded the
intangible truth of sensual perceptions from the persistent intrusions of
probing science. Art has always been valued precisely for its capacity to
'remind us of harmonies inaccessible to systematic analysis'. Anyone can
understand the construction of a nuclear reactor even if he has never seen
one. But it is absolutely impossible to explain to a person what charm is if
he has never been enchanted.

'The might of science lies in its universality. Its laws are free of the
arbitrariness of people, it only represents their collective experience,
independent of age, nationality, or frame of mind.'

The secret of art is its inimitability. The power of its influence depends on
the whole body of the previous experience of a person, on the wealth of his
associations, on elusive changes in his mood, on a chance glance, word, or
touch - on all that constitutes the individuality, the beauty of the
transient and the power of the inimitable.

Science is thorough and unhurried; it keeps on solving its problems for years
on end, and many of them are often passed over from generation to
generation. It can afford this luxury because of an unambiguous method that
has been devised for recording and storing the facts established by
science. In art the intuitively precise world of images is fluid. (Great
actors are sometimes called 'heroes of the fleeting moment'.) One keen but
split-second perception, however, may awake in the heart of a person a
response that will stay with him for years and that may even alter the whole
course of his life.
	Then would I hail the fleeting moment
	O stay - you are so fair!
was Faust's passionate longing that could only be fulfilled by the magic of
art. It is this magic that after a lapse of many years can bring back with a
frightening clarity the nuances of remote thoughts and moods that defy any
words.

'Notwithstanding the seeming fragility of ambiguity of artistic images, art
is more durable and ancient than science. The Gilgamesh Epic and Homer's
poems do stir us even now because they tell us something that is vital in man
and that has remained unchanged for thousands of years. As for science, it
has hardly had time to consolidate the new possibilities of research.'

It is almost impossible today to read books on physics written in the last
century, so obsolete they have become and so much has the whole style of
scientific thought changed since then. The importance of scientific works is,
therefore, determined by their productivity, not their longevity. They have
already done their bit, if they helped to promote science in their time.

Any actor understands that he cannot reach the acme of his art without first
mastering the sciences of diction, mimicry, and gesture. And only then
(provided he is talented, of course!) can he create something unique and
wondrous quite unconsciously.

'In exactly the same manner, a scientist, even thought he has mastered the
trade of a physicist, will make no real physicist if he only trusts to
formulas and logic. All profound truths of science are paradoxes at birth and
cannot be attained by only leaning on logic and experiment.'

To cut the long story short, real art is impossible without the most rigorous
science. Likewise, deep scientific revelations only in part belong to
science, the other part lying in the domain of art. But there are always
boundaries to the scientific analysis of art, and there is always a limit to
grasping science by an impulse of inspiration.

There is an apparent complementarity in the methods utilized by art and
science to know the world. Science relies routinely on the analysis of facts
and search for cause-effect relations; it strives to ' ... find an eternal
law in the marvelous transmutations of chance', endeavours to ' ...find a
fixed pole in the endless train of phenomena'. Art, on the other hand, is
largely unconscious synthesis, which finds among the same 'transmutations of
chance' the only and the inimitable ones and among the same 'endless train of
phenomena' infallibly selects only those that enable one to sense the harmony
of the whole.

The world of human perceptions is infinitely diverse, although chaotic and
coloured with personal emotions. Man has a way of putting his impressions in
order and comparing them with those of others. To this end, he has invented
science and created arts. Art and science have thus had common
beginnings. They are united by the feeling of wonder they evoke - how did
this formula, this poem, this theory or this music came into existence? ( The
ancients said, 'The beginning of knowledge is wonder.' )

    'The creative aspect of all arts and sciences is the same. It is
    determined by one's intuitive capacity to group facts and impressions of
    the surrounding world so as to satisfy our emotional need for harmony, a
    feeling one experiences when out of chaos of external impressions one has
    worked up something simple and consummate, e.g., a statue out of a block
    of marble, a poem out of a collection of words, or a formula out of
    numbers. This emotional satisfaction is also the first criterion of the
    truth of the product, which of course is to be tested later on - by
    experiments in science and by time in art.'

'Scientist studies nature not because it is useful; rather he studies it
because it is a source of pleasure for him, because nature is beautiful. If
nature were not beautiful, it would not be worthy of the effort that goes
into knowing it, and life would be not worthy of the effort it takes to live
it.'

These words belong to Henri Poincare. Aesthetic perception of the logical
beauty of science is inherent in some form or other in each true
scientist. But perhaps nobody said about this better than Poincare. 'He loved
science not only for the sake of science. For him it was a source of
spiritual joys and aesthetical delights of an artist who has mastered the art
of couching beauty in real forms, ' (from his Russian translator).

Leonid I. Ponomarev graduated from Moscow University and for 20 years worked
at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna. At present he heads a
theoretical department at the I.V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy.  His
scientific interests are centred around quantum physics, specifically muon
catalyzed fusion. Other interests of Prof. Ponomarev include the history of
science. http://www.physlink.com/Education/essay_ponomarev.cfm

Contents

from http://www.gorilla.it/libri/quantum-dice-ponomarev-institute-physics/9780750302517

Part One: ORIGINS
    Chapter One: ATOMS; Waves; Quanta; Before and after Democritus; Titus
	Lucretius Carus; Isaac Newton on atoms.
    Chapter Two: Spectra; Ions; Radiant matter; Atoms, electrons, waves;
	Discovery of spectral analysis; The beginnings of television; William
	Crookes; Kinetic theory of gases; Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov.
    Chapter Three: The planetary atom; Spectral series; Photons; Victory of
	atomistics; The indivisible atom; The diffraction grating; Just what
	hath Rutherford wrought? Light pressure;
    Chapter Four: Pre-Bohr times; The Bohr atom; Post-Bohr times; Formal
	model of the atom; Niels Henrik David Bohr; Experimental proof of
	Bohr's postulates.
    Chapter Five: TEACHINGS OF THE ANCIENTS; First attempts; Elements and
	atoms; Table of elements; The Periodic law; Atoms and people.
Part Two: IDEAS
    Chapter Six: Contemporaries comment on Bohr's theory; Phenomenon, image,
	concept, formula; Heisenberg's matrix mechanics; The foundation of
	physics.
    Chapter Seven: Louis de Broglie; Matter waves; Optical-mechanical
	analogy; Schrodinger's wave mechanics; The life of Boscovich
	... ... and his atom; Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1933).
    Chapter Eight: Schrodinger's equation; The meaning of the psi function;
	The image of the atom; Quantum truth; Compton's experiment; Electron
	diffraction.
    Chapter Nine: Wave-particle duality; Uncertainty relation;
	Complementarity principle; Duality and uncertainty; Poets and the
	complementarity principle.
    Chapter Ten: Heads or tails and target shooting; Electron diffraction;
	Probability waves; Electron waves; The atom and probability;
	Probability and atomic spectra; Causality and chance, probability and
	certainty; People, events, quanta.
    Chapter Eleven - What is an atom? What is quantum mechanics?; Physical
	reality; In search of the last concepts.
Part Three: RESULTS
    Chapter Twelve: Wilhelm Konrad Rontgen; Antoine Henri Becquerel; Pierre
	and Marie Curie; Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy; The energy of
	radium; X-ray waves.
    Chapter Thirteen: The chemisty of radioelements; Isotopes; uranium
	family; Stable isotopes; Radioactive decay energy; Nuclear binding
	energy; Uranium; Earth and radium; Knights of the fifth decimal
	place.
    Chapter Fourteen: Probing into the nucleus; The neutron; Artificial
	radioactivity; Slow neutrons; Nuclear fission; Letters about
	fission.
    Chapter Fifteen: Tunnel effect; Effective cross-sections of reactions;
	Neutron cross-sections; Nuclear fission; Labelled atoms; Radiocarbon
	dating.
    Chapter Sixteen: Chain reaction; Nuclear reactor; Spontaneous fission of
	uranium; The natural nuclear reactor at Oklo.
    Chapter Seventeen: Atomic Energy; Plutonium; The atomic bomb; The atomic
	problem; A chronology of the atomic era; Soddy on atomic energy.
    Chapter Eighteen: Solar light; Crucibles of elements; The fate of the
	Sun; The Sun, life and chlorophyll; Life under the Sun; A sun on
	earth; Quanta around us.
Part Four: REFLECTIONS
    Chapter Nineteen:
	Inception of the scientific method
	Essence of the scientific method and its development.
	Truth and completeness of the scientific picture of the world.
	Science and humanity
	Boundaries of the scientific method
	Science and art
	Future of science
	Epilogue.