Hello everyone and welcome to the Mindscape Podcast. I'm your host Sean Carroll and today we have another episode of Quantum Mechanics.

I know this makes everyone very excited. Today I'm talking to Adam Becker, who is a PhD in physics,

but has gone the route of becoming a freelance science writer, and most interestingly for our current purposes,

he's the author of a book called What Is Real. This is a really wonderful book. I've been recommending it right and left.

It's about the history of quantum mechanics in the 20th century, but it's not the typical history.

Most histories of quantum mechanics focus on from 1900 to 1935, and what Adam really does is look at what happens after 1935.

He does a little bit of the early stuff, but the point is that as I talk about in my own book, something deeply hidden,

there's this weird thing where quantum mechanics is invented. It comes with this giant problem called the Measurement Problem,

what really happens when you measure a quantum system, why do the rules seem to be different, etc.

And then after a very brief flurry of interest in talking about the measurement problem with people like Boer and Einstein and Schrodinger going back and forth,

it's forgotten. It's just a dropped. It is in fact, becomes disreputable to even think about the measurement problem.

So Adam really digs into the history of the people who refused to be quieted when talking about this huge problem in physics.

The plucky band of rebels who really said, no, actually this is kind of an important thing. We need to think about it.

So he talks about Hugh Everett, of course, but also David Bohm, John Bell, a lot of the experimentalists like Clouser and Aspe and others,

who really tackled this problem and tried to remind the physics community that despite what their advisors told them,

the measurement problem in quantum mechanics is really, really important. So it's not about here solving the measurement problem.

It's sort of about the history of how physicists talked about that problem. And it's a fascinating history with colorful characters.

So you'll both learn a little bit about quantum mechanics, but also learn a little bit about the history and sociology of physics,

which is really much more fascinating than it has any right to be. So let's go.

Adam Becker, welcome to the Binescape Podcast.

Well, thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Of course, this is a slightly unusual show just because they're all slightly unusual. I don't know why I keep saying that, but quantum mechanics,

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