Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars | 3,169 ratings

Price: 17.72

Last update: 08-16-2024


About this item

Instant New York Times best seller

As you listen to these words, copies of you are being created. Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.

Quantum mechanics has always had obvious gaps—which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable audiobook, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us.

Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many Worlds Theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world, the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established.

Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding—of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of.


Top reviews from the United States

Stephen Held
5.0 out of 5 stars Look Out for Collapsing Wave Functions
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2020
I'm late to the party, I know; the book was published almost a year ago. But I swore I wouldn't buy another book on Quantum Theory. Every author claims they will explain it, but of course they can't. All I wanted to do was understand quantum mechanics before I died, but to use an oxymoron, Carroll made it blindingly clear that wasn't going to happen. Not the dying part, the understanding part.
Don't misunderstand - this is a superb book. It's well written, insightful, and entertaining. It's on the other extreme of the spectrum of useful explanations from, say Roger Penrose. Penrose is reputed to be one of the smartest living scientists, but his writing is impenetrable and should not be marketed to the general public. Maybe 100 people in the world understand him. I suspect most physicists lie and never finish his books.
I knew there was a problem with quantum theory when I tossed the problem of quantum entanglement to my 9 year old grandson and he couldn't solve it. He's a really smart kid. My experience has been the drunker I get the more sense theories seem to make. Problem is, I could never get drunk enough for quantum mechanics to make sense. When I read that if the wave function of the universe simply obeys the Schrodinger equation it will undergo decoherence and branching I think to myself tell me something I don't know. No I don't. I think is this going to be on the test? Is it too late to drop the course? What sustains me is the famous Feynman quote. Don't feel bad if you don't understand quantum physics. Nobody does.
But exploring the many manifestations of quantum theory with witty conversations and amusing anecdotes is not enough. String theory, the many worlds, the numerous other quantum theories Carroll explains reminds me of what Hossenfelder said in her recent book Lost in Math. Theoretical physicists are collectively delusional, unable or unwilling to recognize their unscientific procedures. As Unger and Smolin said in The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, if a theory makes no predictions and is unfalsifyable it's no longer science. The more time that passes after the establishment of the Standard Model in the 1960's and 70's with very little progress, the more philosophical and metaphysical science seems to have become.
The thing I can't get past is nonlocality. Neither could Einstein. Having remote particles instantly affect each other when one of them changes is what Einstein called spooky action at a distance. No explanation I've seen is convincing.
I think some of the critiques of Carroll's book are a tad harsh. I think the problem lies with quantum physics- trying to explain it is pretty heroic. Despite my criticism, if Sean Carroll writes another book I'll probably buy it.
A parting note - I would have submitted this review earlier, but towards the end of the book I was seriously injured by a collapsing wave function.
Jerry Gillespie
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for non-physicists who want to understand all things quantum
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2024
"Everything is quantum." Although I have had only high school physics, I found this book a generally accessible door into current understanding of the quantum world. Sure, there were concepts I didn't fully grasp, but I followed along well enough to be engaged all the way through. The universe is far more complex than meets the eye, and what we see isn't even close to all that's there nor going on. If you're the least bit curious, pick it up and give and it a read!
Angel
4.0 out of 5 stars A bit too Snobbish
Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2021
I'm not one to review books, or even review anything at all, however, I wanted to give my two cents about this one.

I read Something Deeply Hidden through and through. The information Carrol presents and reciprocates in his book is great, not gonna lie, and helped me add knowledge to my understanding of Quantum Theory. However, there are some quarrels about the author himself. To any piece of literature, whether that be non-fiction or fiction, the author reveals themselves within their writings, to which reveals who they are as a person.
That being said, Carrol appears as a pretentious know-it-all that adheres to the prowess of knowing and teaching Quantum Theory. Not only does he remind you of that fact here and there, he begins the book with a warning and a history lecture, the latter being a third of the book as a whole. Both of which are not necessary as one looks to books that present Quantum Theory for the information and not for a lesson on how it got there. SDH is then like every other mainstream book about science that many physicists praise. If what you're looking for is the information, you would find it dead center of the book, excluding the fact that you know the workings of Hawking and Rovelli or that you don't mind a spiel about the metaphysical aspects of Q.T. (more on that later)
Once you look past the character that is Carrol, you run into another problem. When explaining the concepts of entanglement and such, one would have to use an analogy to fully grasp them. What Carrol does is he formulates an analogy, but then drops it a paragraph later. Leaving the reader to pick up after the man who is 'teaching' you. Going back to when I mention the spiel on metaphysics. Completely unnecessary to the avid reader and actually blurs the knowledge trying to be obtained. Carrol somehow brought philosophy and went about it for a good chunk of time, which is understandable, to a certain degree, but irrelevant.

All in all, the information present is not at all bad nor is it false. SDH is a great tool to add to your quantum theory toolbar. In essence, what matters is what is present and how well it is being understood.

TL;DR: Carrol is arrogant but not in a bad way. Good info in most parts.
35% is a history lesson. 5% is a rant on Philosophical intentions, 25% is Carrol showing off, 15% is the juicy knowledge you're looking for, 20% is analogies that try to help.
Tim Kincaid
5.0 out of 5 stars Needs a glossery
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2024
Wonderful book. Opens many doors. My only criticism is that I wish he had included a glossary for the non physics majors, like myself.

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