How the Hippies Saved Physics, David Kaiser
How the Hippies Saved Physics, David Kaiser
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How the Hippies Saved Physics
Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival

Author: David Kaiser

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Unabridged: 12 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/27/2011

Categories: Nonfiction, Science

Synopsis

The surprising story of eccentric young scientists who stood up to conventionand changed the face of modern physics In the 1970s, amid severe cutbacks in physics funding, a small group of underemployed physicists in Berkeley decided to throw off the constraints of academia and explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the Fundamental Fysiks Group, they pursued a freewheeling, speculative approach to physics. Some dabbled with LSD while conducting experiments. They studied quantum theory alongside Eastern mysticism and psychic mind reading, discussing the latest developments while lounging in hot tubs. Unlikely as it may seem, this quirky band of misfits altered the course of modern physics, forcing mainstream physicists to pay attention to the strange but exciting underpinnings of quantum theory. Their work on Bells theorem and quantum entanglement helped pave the way for todays advances in quantum information science. A lively and entertaining Cinderella story, How the Hippies Saved Physics takes us to a time when only the unlikeliest heroes could break the science world out of its rut.

About David Kaiser

David Kaiser is an associate professor at MIT, where he teaches in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society and in the Department of Physics. He completed PhDs in physics and the history of science at Harvard University. He is the author of the award-winning book Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics. His research has received awards from the American Physical Society, the History of Science Society, the British Society for the History of Science, and MIT, and he has also received several teaching awards from Harvard and MIT. He and his family live in Natick, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dean on January 18, 2013

It's got hippies. It's got physics. But 'Saved' is nowhere in sight. It should truthfully be entitled, "How Hippie Physicists Tried Everything They Could Think Of To Prove Paranormal Phenomena Exists And Failed Utterly, But Did Prove One Quantum Phenomena From Their Decades Of Failure, With a Side S......more

Goodreads review by Lemar on July 15, 2019

David Kaiser has done a remarkable service by bringing an objective eye to an era that is still mired in controversy. Scholars and people in general take pains to distance themselves from anything tainted by association with drugs or, God forbid, sex, no matter the genuine significance of the music,......more

Goodreads review by Nathan on December 30, 2011

"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." JBS Haldane's words never ring so true as when the quantum world is discussed. At this subatomic level, all our intuitions about space, time, causality, even what a thing is, go out the window. In their place we......more

Goodreads review by Paul on January 05, 2015

"How the Hippies Saved Physics" took me back to my undergraduate days, by first two courses in Quantum Mechanics. Like the protagonists of Kaiser's book, I wanted to understand quantum mechanics. But the profs had their line that always closed off any inquiry ---"Shut up and calculate!" The maths wo......more

Goodreads review by Gina on August 30, 2015

One of the greatest values of this book is the richness of the bibliography. I will be reading from that list for years to come. The hippies in question were doing a lot of interesting experimentation, and expanding on ideas that cold war physics had left behind in favor of developing weapons. They m......more

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