The Industrial Revolution meets the quantum-technology revolution! A steampunk adventure guide to how mind-blowing quantum physics is transforming our understanding of information and energy. Victorian era steam engines and particle physics may seem worlds (as well as centuries) apart, yet a new branch of science, quantum thermodynamics, reenvisions the scientific underpinnings of the Industrial Revolution through the lens of today's roaring quantum information revolution.
Classical thermodynamics, understood as the study of engines, energy, and efficiency, needs reimagining to take advantage of quantum mechanics, the basic framework that explores the nature of reality by peering at minute matters, down to the momentum of a single particle. In her exciting new book, intrepid Harvard physicist Dr. Nicole Yunger Halpern introduces these concepts to the uninitiated with what she calls "quantum steampunk," after the fantastical genre that pairs futuristic technologies with Victorian sensibilities.
While readers follow the adventures of a rag-tag steampunk crew on trains, dirigibles, and automobiles, they explore questions such as, "Can quantum physics revolutionize engines?" and "What deeper secrets can quantum information reveal about the trajectory of time?" Yunger Halpern also describes her own adventures in the quantum universe and provides an insider's look at the work of the scientists obsessed with its technological promise. Moving from fundamental physics to cutting-edge experimental applications, Quantum Steampunk explores the field's aesthetic, shares its whimsy, and gazes into the potential of a quantum future. The result is a blast for fans of science, science fiction, and fantasy.
About the Author
Nicole Yunger Halpern (CAMBRIDGE, MA) is a theoretical physicist and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.
Industry Reviews
[Yunger Halpern] reimagines 19th-century thermodynamics through a modern, quantum lens, playing with the aesthetics of the 1800s through trains, dirigibles and horseless carriages. It is a physics book, but one that is as likely to attract readers of science fiction as those of popular science.
-Simon Ings, NewScientist
At this moment when quantum theory is being applied, nonexperts will find this guide helpful.
-Harvard Magazine
Quantum Steampunk is probably the best plain English explanation of quantum physics you'll find anywhere. Dr. Halpern uses illustrations, whimsical descriptions, and humor.
-Quantum Zeitgeist
An entertaining book... that explains the essence and secrets of the many facets of quantum thermodynamics in layman's terms....By adding literary flair to otherwise dry technical content, Yunger Halpern masterfully conveys in simple terms the variety of complex ideas that characterize the different subfields of quantum thermodynamics.
-Physics Today
[Yunger Halpern] combines fragments of a yet-to-be-written steampunk novel with her personal and technical accounts of coming of age in the modern era of quantum thermodynamics.This optimistic, balanced view of modern quantum research, emphasizing fundamentals and minimizing hype, is a good introduction for the general scientific-minded reader.
-Charles Clark, NIST Connections
