QUANTUM!

A novelist sets out to explain quantum physics in simple terms.

Readers sucked in by curiosity and by Daviz’s animated, retro, Pixar-style illustrations will likely come out the other end of this informational wormhole more confused than ever, but perhaps the book’s confirmation that the subatomic realm really is weird and unintuitive—and what that tells us about how much we have yet to understand about how the physical universe ticks—is worth the trip. Edge attempts to address a huge range of topics, from the Big Bang to Schrödinger’s “zombie” cat, to supernovas, black holes, and dark matter and energy. With such scope, shortcuts are unavoidable; not only does he never get around to defining what quantum actually means, but he also doesn’t explain the differences between “up” quarks and “down” quarks, or how they all got their droll designations. Likewise, he neglects to mention that there are considerably more than three states of matter, and although he does discuss quantum entanglement and spaghettification, his blithe promise to “shed a little light” on how photons can be both particles and waves remains unkept. Dressed in lab coats, human figures diverse of race and gender, and some who use wheelchairs, appear occasionally in the pictures as the free-form quark narrator progresses through both macro and micro universes.

Sketchy and wildly ambitious, though lightened by a free-wheeling spirit.