Book Reviewed: Basic Concepts of Modern Physics: Quanta, Particles, Relativity by Georg Unger

Making sense out of quantum and classical realities The author explores the reconciliation of quantum and classical realities with metaphysical solutions. Consciousness is not considered as a fundamental part of the physics or mathematics that explains the physical reality, but it is relevant in understanding quantum reality. He concludes that a reductionist approach may not help us understand physical reality, because properties like quantum uncertainties, wave-particle duality of matter, and quantum entanglement are puzzling to classical experience of material world. The book grapples with ironing out these ambiguities and the conceptual problems in physics, and observes that the non-intuitive nature of quantum physics leads to misunderstandings of physical reality. For example, if you measure the position of a particle, just before the measurements, they exist in wave form, so measurement would put the particle in one place, a transition from wave to particle that has definite position (a wave has no position). This particle materializing out of uncertain “positions” of a wave (particles) which could occur faster than speed of light seemingly violating Einstein’s special theory of relativity which does not allow any signals faster than speed of light. Similarly, quantum entanglement between two particles could occur across vast cosmic distances. If you measure quantum state of one particle, the outcome is correlated with the measurement of the other particle, even if the two are separated by light years. This effect does not mean faster-than-light communication, but it does mean nature exhibits nonlocal correlations. The author suggests that quantum uncertainties and quantum statistical phenomena are signs of the incomplete manifestation of entities whose essence has may be comprehended by other cognitive methods. A possible relationship may exist between Hilbert space and consciousness; the former is a complete mathematical space to describe the state of quantum systems that may emerge from underlying consciousness. The physical reality may also be an illusion (like Maya of Advaita Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism.) The holographic principle of theories of quantum gravity (especially string theory), suggests that all the information contained in a 3-dimensional volume of cosmos is actually encoded on its 2-dimensional boundary. In other words, the 3D “reality” we see is a projection or reflection of information stored in 2D.