Here are 100 books that Tales of the Quantum fans have personally recommended if you like
Tales of the Quantum.
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I am a scientist, educator, successful entrepreneur, and author. I believe that human civilization is threatened by the wonderful and dangerous technologies that we created in the last two centuries: fossil fuels, nuclear weapons, gene editing, AI, and social media. As a creator of technologies, I feel responsible that more hasn’t been done to properly control them. My current mission is to sound an alarm about the potential tyranny of technology through my novels, 100 Years to Extinction and the sequel, 12 Years to AI Singularity, on my website and on social media. While the recommended books on my list are nonfiction, my fictional story presents the science and technology accurately as nonfiction would.
As in my second recommendation, Harari adds the historical perspective to humanity’s survival.
The coming battle with AI is just the latest for humans. One hundred thousand years ago, at least six humanoid species inhabited the Earth and battled for survival. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens.
Harari does a beautiful job of explaining how our species succeed in the battle for dominance. He describes how our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms; how did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism?
We need to understand our past to properly control our future with AI.
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?
In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
In school, I wasn’t fond of physics. Most of my education focused on the history of human civilization and culture. I rediscovered physics partly thanks to the books mentioned here—and the strangeness of quanta. My studies, exposure to Tao and Zen philosophies, and exploration of physics have given me a unique perspective and awareness: humanity is merely a tiny particle in the universe, neither central nor the king of all creation. Nothing new, of course—Buddha, Heraclitus, and Shakespeare all knew it well.
Much of the story unfolds in China during the Cultural Revolution, then shifts into realms of imagination, physics, and mathematics. Concepts like stretching a proton to planetary dimensions, encoding information within it, and compressing it back into a spy particle are astounding.
I resonate with the author’s insight: our civilization itself may be the root of humanity's eventual downfall. Politics, religions, culture, and beliefs—rarely sources of pride—are more often causes for shame, a testament to human folly above all else. Breaking free from these constructs is no easy task.
Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon - soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones.
1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind.
Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable…
In school, I wasn’t fond of physics. Most of my education focused on the history of human civilization and culture. I rediscovered physics partly thanks to the books mentioned here—and the strangeness of quanta. My studies, exposure to Tao and Zen philosophies, and exploration of physics have given me a unique perspective and awareness: humanity is merely a tiny particle in the universe, neither central nor the king of all creation. Nothing new, of course—Buddha, Heraclitus, and Shakespeare all knew it well.
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld hooked me from the very first pages—cliché as that may sound, it’s true. Virtually the entire book (as well as others from the Discworld) I read with a smile on my face.
Pratchett’s unique humor, his satirical take on human nature, the imaginative world of Discworld, and his reflections on reality come together in a brilliant mix that made me read… and read… and read.
On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There's an avaricious buy inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course The Edge of the planet...
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
In school, I wasn’t fond of physics. Most of my education focused on the history of human civilization and culture. I rediscovered physics partly thanks to the books mentioned here—and the strangeness of quanta. My studies, exposure to Tao and Zen philosophies, and exploration of physics have given me a unique perspective and awareness: humanity is merely a tiny particle in the universe, neither central nor the king of all creation. Nothing new, of course—Buddha, Heraclitus, and Shakespeare all knew it well.
What impressed me the most was the idea that our reality could be a mathematical structure. This book made me appreciate physics—which I hated in school—and view reality from a different perspective. It inspired my imagination, and although it's a nonfiction, popular science book, it was a great read that sometimes left me with bated breath. In a strange way, the ideas reminded me of Zen philosophy and Taoist qi energy, as if astrophysics were proving these ancient intuitions, which I like to call 'forgotten knowledge.'
Nature, said Galileo, is 'a book written in the language of mathematics'. But why should this be? How can mathematics be at the heart of our universe?
The great Hungarian physicist and Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner stressed that this 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematics at describing the world was a mystery demanding explanation. Here, Max Tegmark, one of the most original cosmologists at work today, takes us on an astonishing journey to solve that mystery.
Part-history of the cosmos, part-intellectual adventure, Our Mathematical Universe travels from the Big Bang to the distant future via parallel worlds, across every possible scale -…
I have always been fascinated by how the world works. What gives gravity so much power? Why is it easier to lift things with levers and pulleys? Why do we have electricity inside of our own bodies?! The world is amazing. My job editing nonfiction books for kids puts me on the front lines of some of the smartest science writing out there. While I had no hand in the making of the following five picture books about physics, they are still some of my favorites because of the way they peel back the mysterious layers of the world to show us the science hidden in our daily lives.
Fun and super clear graphics combined with straightforward discussions of complex topics make this book a hit. The writing is more expository than narrative, which will appeal to kids who love fact books and encyclopedias. Another one that both adults and kids can learn a ton from!
Everything around us – trees, buildings, food, light, water, air and even ourselves – is composed of minute particles, smaller than a nanometer (a billionth of a meter). Quantum physics is the science of these particles and without it none of our electronic devices, from smartphones to computers and microwave ovens, would exist.
But quantum physics also pushes us to the very boundaries of what we know about science, reality and the structure of the universe. The world of quantum physics is an amazing place, where quantum particles can do weird and wonderful things, acting totally unlike the objects we…
I am totally fascinated by the quest of how Nature does it. In particular, I love the fact that humans managed to enters the strange world of atoms and photons by just using their brute intellectual force and imagination. This world obeys precise rules, but very different ones from those we get used to since childhood. For example, the laws that govern the microscopic world allow for indeterminacy and randomness. Moreover, some random events may manifest themselves at several locations at once, leading to the phenomenon of quantum non-locality. I am very fortunate that I could spend all my professional time on such fascinating conceptual questions, combined with highly timely new technologies.
This little book introduces quantum physics at the level of high-school students. It starts with semi-transparent mirrors and interferometers. With figures, but no equations, the reader becomes familiar with wave-particle duality. Next, quantum cryptography, some experiments, and even quantum teleportation are presented in a truly pedestrian way. I much enjoyed reading this book.
Quantum physics is often perceived as a weird and abstract theory, which physicists must use in order to make correct predictions. But many recent experiments have shown that the weirdness of the theory simply mirrors the weirdness of phenomena: it is Nature itself, and not only our description of it, that behaves in an astonishing way. This book selects those, among these typical quantum phenomena, whose rigorous description requires neither the formalism, nor an important background in physics.
The first part of the book deals with the phenomenon of single-particle interference, covering the historical questions of wave-particle duality, objective randomness…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I am a professor of quantum physics—the most notoriously complicated science humans have ever invented. While the likes of Albert Einstein commented on how difficult quantum physics is to understand, I disagree! Ever since my mum asked me—back while I was a university student—to explain to her what I was studying, I’ve been on a mission to make quantum physics as widely accessible as possible. Science belongs to us all and we should all have an opportunity to appreciate it!
Quantum physics is supposed to be weird and mysterious, right? You might then get the impression that Beyond Weird will explain how quantum physics is weirder than weird. But, no! Beyond Weird is about how we can beyond the concept that quantum physics is weird. Philip Ball does an amazing job telling the story of how physicists have tried to make sense of quantum theory.
"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."
Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it's not really telling us that "weird" things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world: rather, everything is quantum. But if quantum mechanics is correct, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don't seem obvious or right at all-or even possible.
An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what…
I am totally fascinated by the quest of how Nature does it. In particular, I love the fact that humans managed to enters the strange world of atoms and photons by just using their brute intellectual force and imagination. This world obeys precise rules, but very different ones from those we get used to since childhood. For example, the laws that govern the microscopic world allow for indeterminacy and randomness. Moreover, some random events may manifest themselves at several locations at once, leading to the phenomenon of quantum non-locality. I am very fortunate that I could spend all my professional time on such fascinating conceptual questions, combined with highly timely new technologies.
This book tells the fascinating story of the people and events behind the turbulent changes in attitudes to quantum theory in the second half of the 20th century. Science is sometimes quite abstract. But it is made by very concrete persons whose characters shape the various scientific communities.
This book tells the fascinating story of the people and events behind the turbulent changes in attitudes to quantum theory in the second half of the 20th century. The huge success of quantum mechanics as a predictive theory has been accompanied, from the very beginning, by doubts and controversy about its foundations and interpretation. This book looks in detail at how research on foundations evolved after WWII, when it was revived, until the mid 1990s, when most of this research merged into the technological promise of quantum information. It is the story of the quantum dissidents, the scientists who brought…
I am a professor of quantum physics—the most notoriously complicated science humans have ever invented. While the likes of Albert Einstein commented on how difficult quantum physics is to understand, I disagree! Ever since my mum asked me—back while I was a university student—to explain to her what I was studying, I’ve been on a mission to make quantum physics as widely accessible as possible. Science belongs to us all and we should all have an opportunity to appreciate it!
In How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog Chad Orzel has an imaginary conversation about quantum physics with his dog, Emmy. Orzel explains each of the features of quantum physics, like superposition and entanglement, by starting first with an analogy in Emmy’s understandably dog-like behavior.
Quantum physics has never been more popular. Once thought of as an obscure science, it reached the masses via the notion of teleportation in Star Trek and, more recently, as an integral part of the popular TV series Lost and Fringe. Now, inspired by his hugely popular website and science blog, Chad Orzel uses his cherished mutt Emmy to explain the basic principles of quantum physics. And who better to explain the magical universe of quantum physics than a talking dog?
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
As a professor, I see students fascinated by science, but petrified to take a science class. This is in part because we have dehumanized science, removed the story, edited out the human, deleted the parts that allow people to connect with it. Science does not get delivered by gods, but is created by people: smart, quirky, sometimes immoral people. As a writer, my hope is to be able to reinsert life into readers’ understanding of our greatest advances. As a reader myself, I am deeply appreciative when other authors do it too.
The early period of the development of quantum mechanics were heady days, full of fascinating characters and factional infighting. As Europe was about to tear itself apart again, the physics community had also fractured. Jones explains the scientific fault lines and the personal relations (some of them quite racy!) that were in play as the modern theory of the atom unfolded.
Theoretical physics is in trouble. At least that's the impression you'd get from reading a spate of recent books on the continued failure to resolve the 80-year-old problem of unifying the classical and quantum worlds. The seeds of this problem were sewn eighty years ago when a dramatic revolution in physics reached a climax at the 1927 Solvay conference in Brussels. It's the story of a rush to formalize quantum physics, the work of just a handful of men fired by ambition, philosophical conflicts and personal agendas. Sheilla Jones paints an intimate portrait of the key figures who wrestled with…
