`Alice in Quantumland (an allegory of Quantum Physics)' and `Scrooge's Cryptic Carol (Three Visions of Energy, Time and Quantum Reality)'

Abstract

We have here two quite delightful books illustrating and explaining the apparently unbelievable aspects of modern physics. As the titles suggest, they are written to match Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the three ghostly visitations in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Alice, in falling into Quantumland via the television screen, encounters a world of electrons and photons. As she herself is not a fermion she is able to get into the same compartment of a train carrying pairs of electrons. Reaching the screen, she is taken up by the photon express. Eventually she enters the Heisenberg Bank, which lends energy to its customers in accordance with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. On leaving through the doors of the bank she finds uncertainty as to where she ends up outside. However, she does arrive at the Mechanics Institute where, billiards is not as we know it. Balls behave as electrons and she is introduced to constructive and destructive interference. She moves on to the Copenhagen School, where she encounters a series of curious characters - Schrödinger's cat, an emperor, a little mermaid and an ugly duckling, all of whom have something to tell her about quantum physics. In the Fermi - Bose Academy, Alice is introduced to interactions between photons and electrons, and there is a splendid model of valence and conduction bands involving a lecture theatre with a balcony to which the electrons can be excited. In later chapters Alice meets up with virtual photons, the periodic table and electron energy levels within the atom. Arriving at Castle Rutherford, she encounters the mysteries of the atom and tunnelling. Here she attends a party called the particle MASSquerade where particles whirl around and collide and change their type. At the final unmasking Alice encounters the quarks. There are some further curiosities when Alice goes to a physics 'phun phair' and finds out more about quarks and about emitted photons, which must have opposite spins. The quantum world that Alice encounters exhibits a wide range of topics about a common theme. As the subtitle of Scrooge's Cryptic Carol implies, this story contains a number of themes, and possibly requires a greater background in physics to fully understand the details. It covers some of the same ideas as Alice but the models and analogies are different. In the first vision, Scrooge is visited by the Mistress of the World rather in the shape of Queen Victoria. Scrooge is very surprised to learn that the world is not governed by money, rather by the transfer of energy. He is pleased to hear that this is related to work but is unbelieving when told he is doing little as he sits at his desk. There is a nice analogy between the averaging out of all the thermal states of the atoms in a solid and the averaging out of the printed dots within a coloured picture. The first visit essentially tells Scrooge about thermodynamics, including the general increase of entropy in the Universe as it moves to a so-called 'Heat Death'. Visit two by the Spirit of Change tells Scrooge about relativity. He thought he knew about time and motion but not so. He learns about Lorentz transformations and about the light cone (things are getting a bit difficult now) and about indeterminacy and fractals in what had seemed a clockwork universe. Visit three from a circus clown, the Clown in the Cosmos, is about quantum mechanics and it is here that some of the same ideas are covered as in Alice. Again we are introduced to the uncertainty principle, are told about energy fluctuations, and have clearly explained why 'small' means 'massive'. I hope the examples taken from the two books will whet rather than spoil the potential reader's appetite. Ideas come so thick and fast that there is much more to discover. Both books contain inserts or notes explaining the physics behind the different visions, and in Scrooge's Cryptic Carol the inserts include the occasional equation. At the end of each is an index covering the main scientific terms used. The inserts and indexes considerably enhance the books as educational texts. The author has illustrated the books himself. These illustrations are usually to amuse but sometimes they help one to understand the physics. In Scrooge, I would have appreciated a few more explanatory pictures. These volumes are fun and Robert Gilmore's 30 years of research experience in particle physics at Bristol University have enabled him to write thought-provoking and accurate physics.