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Jump to navigationJump to searchHow the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival by David Kaiser (view source)
Revision as of 13:42, 4 September 2012
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|summary=An odd bunch of young physicists in Berkeley, California, banded together to explore the alternative side of science. The Fundamental Fysiks Group, pursued a daring and original aspect of physics, studying quantum entanglement in terms of Eastern mysticism and psychic mind reading.
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In his introduction Professor Kaiser states that there are three ways in which the west coast hippies have benefited the development of Physics; they opened up deeper speculation into the fundamental philosophy behind quantum theory, they latched on to a crucial theorem of Bell, about what Einstein termed ''spooky'' interactions between particles at a distance. This might otherwise have been totally neglected. Thirdly they propounded a key idea which has become known as the ''no-cloning theorem''. Kaiser tells a lucid account as might be expected from the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and department chief in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's program. Incidentally he also provides an engaging insight into the American industrial-military complex and associated institutions like the Californian University of California at BerkleyBerkeley.
After a brief survey of the thirties golden age of European physics, including the theories of Born, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger and of course Einstein, we are introduced to the wacky and hirsute figures of Jack Sarafatti and his good chum, Fred Alan Wolf. This pair were to travel around Europe discussing theories, including the interrelation of consciousness and quantum physics. On the way we are introduced, sometimes with rather scrappy diagrams, to the concepts and key experiments that formed an important new area of Physics, quantum information theory. This has led to technological developments via special encryption that mean that data can be securely sent along optical fibres and is of great importance in finance and to the military. These are contexts where security of transmission is of paramount importance.
The Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory's Fundamental Fysiks Group founded in May 1975 contained many interesting and eccentric characters. Kaiser's account of their work is sometimes as bending of the mind as is his description of Geller's experiments with flexing spoons! Elizabeth A. Rauscher, for instance, emerges as a particularly interesting woman who had to wear tweedy dresses and have her hair cut short to gain serious acceptance at in a time when only male-dominated environment. Only 2 per cent of women were getting Physics PhDs in the States, were being awarded to women at this time. With a certain feistiness and interest in everything from multidimensional Universe explanations to crucial problems, as well as brain waves and psychic healing, she must have been a wonderful participant guiding the wilder dreams of the so-called Fysiks group. Two other major figures that the Professor reminded this reader about were Thomas Kuhn and David Bohm.
Kuhn's work testified to a fruitful interaction between the Philosophy of Science and Physics itself. It emphasises that the development in knowledge often requires a huge change, one might even say a quantum leap, to which the prevailing orthodoxy presiding over the subject are resistant. In his account there is no smooth progression involved but a shift, a paradigm shift required to explain new experimental results. Kuhn had to defend his account against charges of relativism but it has the advantage of opening up the teaching of the subject and helping students realise that the study of Physics requires imagination and creativity. David Kaiser draws on these ideas and gives a lively account of the correspondence and vigorous exchange of ideas between the extraordinary Ira Einhorn who was eventually to be convicted of the first degree murder of his own wife and Thomas Kuhn.
