Welcome

There’s much more difference (. . . ) between a human being who knows quantum mechanics and one that doesn’t than between one that doesn’t and the other great apes. — Murray Gell-Mann

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I created this site in 2011, after the publication of the first edition of The World According to Quantum Mechanics. Meanwhile the second edition has been published. While the book has undergone considerable changes — for one thing, it’s fatter by about 200 pages — this site has not. Much of what the present page originally contained can be found here, and what is new in the second edition of the book (and missing on this site) is outlined here. I try to keep the Papers and Presentations updated of course.

→ The Mystique

“An encounter with quantum mechanics is not unlike an encounter with a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Disguised in sleek axiomatic appearance, at first quantum mechanics looks harmless enough. But beware: a moment later, it may sneak up from behind and whack you over the head with some thoroughly mind-boggling questions. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine how we could ever cook up another physical theory that’s as simultaneously innocuous and cunning. A theory whose formalism can be written down on a napkin whilst attempts to interpret it fill entire libraries. A theory that has seen astonishing experimental confirmation yet leaves us increasingly perplexed the more we think about it.” — Maximilian Schlosshauer

→ The Technique

“The fact that we find ourselves in a quantum world where measurement is possible… will surely involve the same sort of explanation as the fact that we find ourselves in a world where we are able to exist as carbon-based life forms.” — Jeffrey Bub

→ The Critique

“I feel that the real joke that the eternal inventor of enigmas has presented us with has absolutely not been understood as yet.” — Albert Einstein