Book Reviewed: Portals to a New Reality: Five Pathways to the Future of Physics by Vlatko Vedral

The quantum information is central to physical reality (four stars) This is a speculative manifesto that suggests a new theory shed light on the nature of physical reality with better understanding of spacetime and quantum gravity (bending spacetime at subatomic level). This book debate five “portals” (thought experiments) about his ideas of future theories. He proposes that quantum mechanics is universal, which applies to both microscopic and macroscopic systems. He explores experiments in quantum gravity, quantum effects in living organisms, the superpositions of macroscopic objects, and the quantum nature of time. Some of these are thought experiments but he believes that they are within experimental feasibility. He suggests that quantum information is key to the new physics theory in which consciousness plays a role in quantum physical processes, and the human perception could be altered to experience quantum reality directly in ways that were only imaginable. The theme is that reality is fundamentally informational, and unified with cosmic reality and life. The Vedantic concept of Māyā and perception of material world remains firmly within the scientific framework. The author stretches his imagination a little too far hoping that this will lead to better life. Parts of the book are dense for an average reader interested in cosmic reality.