Summary of Sean Carroll's Something Deeply Hidden

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 Quantum mechanics is the heart and soul of modern physics, and it is used in everything from astrophysics to particle physics. It is the most comprehensive view of reality we have, and it is not magic.

#2 The world is fundamentally intelligible, and we have something of a mental block when it comes to quantum mechanics. We need to overcome this, and teach students that quantum mechanics is just a list of rules that we use to make predictions.

#3 The first is that quantum mechanics should be understandable, even if we’re not there yet. It is unique among physical theories in drawing an apparent distinction between what we see and what really is. But this challenge isn’t insuperable, and if we free our minds from certain old-fashioned and intuitive ways of thinking, we find that quantum mechanics isn’t hopelessly mystical or inexplicable.

#4 The third message is that all this matters, and not just for the integrity of science. The success of the existing adequate but not perfectly coherent framework of quantum mechanics shouldn’t blind us to the fact that there are circumstances under which such an approach simply isn’t up to the task.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669386148

IRB Media

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Insights on Sean Carroll's Something Deeply Hidden

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Quantum mechanics is the heart and soul of modern physics, and it is used in everything from astrophysics to particle physics. It is the most comprehensive view of reality we have, and it is not magic.

#2

The world is fundamentally intelligible, and we have something of a mental block when it comes to quantum mechanics. We need to overcome this, and teach students that quantum mechanics is just a list of rules that we use to make predictions.

#3

The first is that quantum mechanics should be understandable, even if we’re not there yet. It is unique among physical theories in drawing an apparent distinction between what we see and what really is. But this challenge isn’t insuperable, and if we free our minds from certain old-fashioned and intuitive ways of thinking, we find that quantum mechanics isn’t hopelessly mystical or inexplicable.

#4

The third message is that all this matters, and not just for the integrity of science. The success of the existing adequate but not perfectly coherent framework of quantum mechanics shouldn’t blind us to the fact that there are circumstances under which such an approach simply isn’t up to the task.

#5

Most public discussions of quantum mechanics describe it as mysterious, weird, and bizarre. However, quantum mechanics is also inscrutable. It tempts us into projecting qualities and capacities onto it that aren’t there.

#6

The world is full of stuff, and how it behaves is a question that has been asked since people started asking questions. Physics is the study of change and motion, of both living and nonliving matter.

#7

Newton’s laws of motion are a classic example of classical mechanics. They explain how objects move in response to other objects and forces, and they can be used to catch baseballs or land rovers on Mars.

#8

The position and velocity of a classical system are its state. The set of all possible states that a system could have is its phase space. The French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace pointed out a profound implication of the classical mechanics way of thinking. In principle, a vast intellect could know the state of literally every object in the universe, from