本书综合了科学技术丶丰富的历史和奇闻趣事，是一本富有顶尖学术思考的科普写作。如果有非学术界的人想知道「科学史是什麽？」，看这本书准没错！
 
在量子层面上，物理定律与日常生活中看到的普通物理定律不再相同。许多奇怪的事情发生在量子层面，像是粒子穿透过墙丶既生又死的「薛定谔的猫」或共享纠缠命运的孪生粒子等等现象。

本书作者旨在向读者介绍物理学家目前仍在探索理解的空间丶时间和物质的最基本面向的指标事件。在一连串充满活力的文章中，作者带领我们进入时代伟人的发现和辩论之刻，像是爱因斯坦丶霍金丶薛丁格等等其他许多让我们对自然的理解有着不可磨灭影响的杰出科学家——这些人试图让这个混乱的世界变得有意义。
 

关於作者
David Kaiser是麻省理工学院科学史和物理学教授。出版着作包括《How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture》和《Quantum Revival》，以及《Groovy Science: Knowledge》丶《 Innovation》和 《American Counterculture》等合着。
 
 
书评
 
《福布斯杂志》
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2020/05/29/book-review-quantum-legacies-by-david-kaiser/#155435e5ff54
 
“A masterpiece of historical analysis. . . . Skillfully written and a pleasure to read.”
Nature
 
"Quantum Legacies does not disappoint. . . . It is a breath of fresh air to see physics writing like this: lucid and friendly, sober and thoughtful, and willing to trust the reader’s engagement and intelligence rather than demanding the former and underestimating the latter. . . .  Superb popular science. . . .  It is hard for me to imagine any physicist who wouldn’t enjoy the fine cloth from which it is cut, nor the pleasing effect it makes."
Philip Ball | Physics World
 
"An ambitious collection of essays that merges [Kaiser's] two scholarly identities. . . . A wide-ranging anthology."
Physics Today
 
"From Einstein to Heisenberg, Schrödinger to Hawking, Kaiser humanises the people and by extension their ideas, all the while making connections between the inner world of the academic quantum theory community and the outer world of global events. This sociopolitical standpoint is a key factor in making the technical science relevant to the non-expert reader. . . . In this collection of highly entertaining essays, he finds the perfect line between scientific scholarship and telling a good story."
Engineering & Technology
 
"Captivating. . . . You can really get the sense of the quantum mechanical impact on various and disparate fields ranging from cosmology to the early foundations of quantum mechanics, the history of quantum mechanics, all the way up through popular culture, weaving its way through how physics pedagogy and even scientific STEM pedagogy is taught to this very day. . . . It's exhaustively researched and referenced. . . . I want people to buy every single copy."
Brian Keating | Into the Impossible
 
"Fantastically readable. Anybody interested in either science or history on a professional or a popular level should read it. It's a fantastic introduction to the way you can think about science in all sorts of different interdisciplinary, humanistic ways. It's really a huge amount of fun."
Matthew Stanley | What the If?
 
"It's [Kaiser's] careful analysis of physics's sociological aspects that makes Quantum Legacies a delightful read. . . . This is the kind of material that you won't find in other books on the history and philosophy of physics."
Ash Jogalekar | The Curious Wavefunction
 
"Kaiser—writing in prose that sometimes soars, often intrigues, and always informs—gives us here a remarkable set of vignettes about major developments in physics and cosmology of the past century. His vignettes beautifully integrate science with human history and with insightful descriptions of outsized personalities. This book will be enjoyable and enlightening for a diverse readership: from complete novices in science, to students of science and history, and to professional scientists and historians."
Kip Thorne, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology, and 2017 Nobel Laureate in Physics
 
"Physicists are people! They have insecurities, love lives, monetary concerns, and political opinions, all while striving to uncover the fundamental workings of reality. Kaiser spins engaging tales that both explain fascinating aspects of physics in a lucid way and illuminate the human beings who worked to discover them."
Sean Carroll, author of Something Deeply Hidden
 
"Have you ever wondered why Schrödinger chose such a morbid illustration of quantum physics as a half-dead cat? Want to know how an alleged Soviet spy escaped capture and went on to shake up particle physics? Can you guess what propelled The Tao of Physics to bestseller status? If questions like these spark your curiosity, this book is for you. I can imagine no better guide for an insider’s tour of twentieth-century physics than Kaiser. These witty vignettes beautifully illustrate what Kaiser calls the 'doubleness' of scientific research, its ability to bequeath enduring insights while reflecting the quirks and foibles of historical circumstances."
Deborah R. Coen, author of Climate in Motion
 
"Explaining physics is easier than explaining physicists. In Quantum Legacies, Kaiser succeeds at both."
George Dyson, author of Turing’s Cathedral
 
"What is extraordinary about Kaiser as a writer (and what makes his essays so much fun to read) is not only his ability to animate the range of personalities in these pages, from Einstein to Heisenberg, Schrödinger to Hawking, but also the way he brings the same humanizing impulse to their mind-bending ideas. His talent for uncovering connections between otherworldly ideas and the social and political worlds in which they take shape makes him a simply spellbinding guide to the mysteries of the universe."
Nell Freudenberger, author of Lost and Wanted
 
"Friendships and rivalries, the demands of war, the limits of technology . . . these are among the rich universe of forces that conflict and conspire to bring us what we usually gloss over as the inevitable march of scientific progress. Kaiser’s book provides a wonderful glimpse behind the curtain into the messier—but far more human—truth of the matter. Beautifully written and extraordinarily well researched, the book makes a profound point about the sociopolitical nature of science that all readers—from physics buffs and historians to students and laypeople—need to hear."
Amanda Gefter, author of Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn
 
“Leave[s] us with a richer picture of physics as a lived activity.” (完整原文连结)
Los Angeles Review of Books