by Fred Alan Wolf

isbn: 0060963107
subject: Nonfiction, General Science
finished: 9/12/2000

Some parts of Taking the Quantum Leap are good; I enjoyed Wolf's history of modern physics and the development of quantum mechanics. However, I disliked some of the strained analogies he used to explain difficult concepts. For example, he claims that the indeterminate quantum state of Schroedinger's cat is similar to the indeterminate state of mind of the person observing the experiment, who does not know if the cat is alive or dead. This sort of sloppy writing is likely to confuse people. I found the last chapter of the book, which discusses "the quantum nature of human consciousness", to be one of the worst pieces of pop science I've ever read. Wolf thinks that humans became conscious several thousand years ago (a la Julian Jaynes) when our brains developed the ability to directly exploit quantum mechanics. Ouch. In summary, there are some good things about this book but they unfortunately don't make up for the bad.