Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

I'm late to the party, I know; the book was published almost a year ago. But I swore I wouldn't buy another book on Quantum Theory. Every author claims they will explain it, but of course they can't. All I wanted to do was understand quantum mechanics before I died, but to use an oxymoron, Carroll made it blindingly clear that wasn't going to happen. Not the dying part, the understanding part.Don't misunderstand - this is a superb book. It's well written, insightful, and entertaining. It's on the other extreme of the spectrum of useful explanations from, say Roger Penrose. Penrose is reputed to be one of the smartest living scientists, but his writing is impenetrable and should not be marketed to the general public. Maybe 100 people in the world understand him. I suspect most physicists lie and never finish his books.I knew there was a problem with quantum theory when I tossed the problem of quantum entanglement to my 9 year old grandson and he couldn't solve it. He's a really smart kid. My experience has been the drunker I get the more sense theories seem to make. Problem is, I could never get drunk enough for quantum mechanics to make sense. When I read that if the wave function of the universe simply obeys the Schrodinger equation it will undergo decoherence and branching I think to myself tell me something I don't know. No I don't. I think is this going to be on the test? Is it too late to drop the course? What sustains me is the famous Feynman quote. Don't feel bad if you don't understand quantum physics. Nobody does.But exploring the many manifestations of quantum theory with witty conversations and amusing anecdotes is not enough. String theory, the many worlds, the numerous other quantum theories Carroll explains reminds me of what Hossenfelder said in her recent book Lost in Math. Theoretical physicists are collectively delusional, unable or unwilling to recognize their unscientific procedures. As Unger and Smolin said in The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, if a theory makes no predictions and is unfalsifyable it's no longer science. The more time that passes after the establishment of the Standard Model in the 1960's and 70's with very little progress, the more philosophical and metaphysical science seems to have become.The thing I can't get past is nonlocality. Neither could Einstein. Having remote particles instantly affect each other when one of them changes is what Einstein called spooky action at a distance. No explanation I've seen is convincing.I think some of the critiques of Carroll's book are a tad harsh. I think the problem lies with quantum physics- trying to explain it is pretty heroic. Despite my criticism, if Sean Carroll writes another book I'll probably buy it.A parting note - I would have submitted this review earlier, but towards the end of the book I was seriously injured by a collapsing wave function.

Wonderful book. Opens many doors. My only criticism is that I wish he had included a glossary for the non physics majors, like myself.

I'm not one to review books, or even review anything at all, however, I wanted to give my two cents about this one. I read Something Deeply Hidden through and through. The information Carrol presents and reciprocates in his book is great, not gonna lie, and helped me add knowledge to my understanding of Quantum Theory. However, there are some quarrels about the author himself. To any piece of literature, whether that be non-fiction or fiction, the author reveals themselves within their writings, to which reveals who they are as a person. That being said, Carrol appears as a pretentious know-it-all that adheres to the prowess of knowing and teaching Quantum Theory. Not only does he remind you of that fact here and there, he begins the book with a warning and a history lecture, the latter being a third of the book as a whole. Both of which are not necessary as one looks to books that present Quantum Theory for the information and not for a lesson on how it got there. SDH is then like every other mainstream book about science that many physicists praise. If what you're looking for is the information, you would find it dead center of the book, excluding the fact that you know the workings of Hawking and Rovelli or that you don't mind a spiel about the metaphysical aspects of Q.T. (more on that later) Once you look past the character that is Carrol, you run into another problem. When explaining the concepts of entanglement and such, one would have to use an analogy to fully grasp them. What Carrol does is he formulates an analogy, but then drops it a paragraph later. Leaving the reader to pick up after the man who is 'teaching' you. Going back to when I mention the spiel on metaphysics. Completely unnecessary to the avid reader and actually blurs the knowledge trying to be obtained. Carrol somehow brought philosophy and went about it for a good chunk of time, which is understandable, to a certain degree, but irrelevant.All in all, the information present is not at all bad nor is it false. SDH is a great tool to add to your quantum theory toolbar. In essence, what matters is what is present and how well it is being understood.TL;DR: Carrol is arrogant but not in a bad way. Good info in most parts.35% is a history lesson. 5% is a rant on Philosophical intentions, 25% is Carrol showing off, 15% is the juicy knowledge you're looking for, 20% is analogies that try to help.

Very delightfull and so deep. The universe has secrets you will find here. Its about cosmology.

I have read many books on quantum physics. This book is a gem and well worth reading several times. It’s written in layman’s terms. Even then some parts are hard to comprehend.

Muchas gracias voy a empezar a leerlo llego 1 dia antes y esta grueso. Buen material (:

Deeply written

An excellent book which gives the reader an appreciation of "where we're at" in the quest for making sense of the theories that currently abound in the world of quantum physics. For me, it's a book to be read at least twice if I want to really understand the implications of the various arguments. I've been interested in physics all my life (and I have a science degree) but I still had to stop and look at some pages for a long time to absorb what was being said. At least reading the e-book version, I found that that relating the various figures to the text was sometimes difficult. I know this isn't a scientific textbook - but I would have appreciated them being numbered. It explains things logically, but about halfway through I lost track of some of the structure. That didn't detract from the message, but I will have to read it again.It raises more questions than it answers, but then that's what I would have expected.Despite what the editors may have thought - I liked the chapter written in the form of dialogue.I was waiting to find out what might be deeply hidden - that's just a quote which someone said. You won't be treated to a revelation.