Try to find the unifying patterns by all means but it’s possible that they may not be so simple, or even recognisable. But I’m also concerned that our primate pattern recognition skills have their limits - what may be the simple underlying concepts we are looking for in nature may not be how nature is structured at its most fundamental levels. It’s how our technological age has developed, for better or worse. I’m certainly amazed at how well our ‘monkey brains’ have found patterns in nature that lead to ‘natural laws’ and allow predictions. But in the end they are speculations at present - experiments in the cutting edge areas are sadly wanting, and it is experiments that have hitherto driven the original development of the major concepts that the author is trying to extrapolate from (basic QM and General Relativity). The author gave intelligent speculations or extrapolations from what we know now to what that may mean for underlying structure. Unfortunately I find it difficult to view these ideas without my own pragmatic prejudices. In fact the author did take the time to air difficult issues - for example, what exactly is the Wave Function that Schrodinger’s Equation uses?! Later in the book other difficult areas requiring work are considered, such as Quantum Gravity, and the nature of space time as emergent consequences of QM. But I appreciated the author giving the current alternative views in a fairly neutral manner though it’s fair to point out the inelegances of the Copenhagen view, or the contradictions in the Bohm approach, etc.

In the first half it’s an enthusiastic recommendation for the Many Worlds interpretation of QM. The author outlines with his characteristic clarity what the problems are facing understanding QM philosophically (mainly the measurement problem). The mathematics behind QM is indisputably accurate but can we give a meaning to the equations and what they seek to describe? This ‘underlying meaning’ issue has been around for the best part of 100 years.

The aim of the book is to clarify the underlying meaning of Quantum Mechanics (QM), the modelling of the sub-atomic world by apparently hazy wave functions and probabilistic outcomes to experiments. I did QM and Relativity modules at university some decades ago, and the book challenged me. Some familiarity with the topics from thorough popular books on those subjects is probably required. I don’t think this is a read for the ‘lay reader’ totally unfamiliar with Quantum Mechanics (QM), Relativity or sub-atomic physics. One of the most difficult ‘popular science’ books I’ve read in recent years, and by an author I admire for his clarity, usually, on cutting edge physics.

Something deeply hidden goodreads