Adam Becker

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Adam Becker
Born1984
New Jersey
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materCornell University, University of Michigan
Known forWhat is Real (2018)
AwardsAlfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics and Philosophy
ThesisIs the Universe Normal? Constraining Scale-Dependent Primordial Non-Gaussianity. (2012)
Doctoral advisorDragan Huterer
Websitefreelanceastrophysicist.com

Adam Michael Becker (born 1984) is an American astrophysicist, author, and scientific philosopher. His works include the book What Is Real?, published by Basic Books, which explores the history and personalities surrounding the development and evolution of quantum physics, and includes a modern assessment of the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Academic background[edit]

In 2006, Becker received a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in philosophy and physics from Cornell University only to earn a Master of Science degree in physics from the University of Michigan a year later.[1] In 2012, Becker would go on to receive a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in physics from the University of Michigan with the physicist Dragan Huterer as his doctoral advisor. His doctoral thesis concerned primordial non-Gaussianity[2][3], which he would later summarize in lay terms for his readers, declaring "I was trying to find out how much we can learn about the way stuff was arranged in the early universe by looking at the way stuff is arranged in the universe right now."[3]

Career[edit]

After completing his doctoral program, Becker wrote and lectured on scientific concepts, providing lay-friendly professional commentary on science.[3][4]

Becker has written for several news and periodicals concerning science for the interested layperson, including the BBC[5] (which culminated in a video series), NPR[6], New Scientist Magazine [7], Scientific American[8], the New York Times[9], Aeon[10], and the global educational program NOVA on the American PBS.[11]

In 2014, while employed at the Public Library of Science, Becker was a lead developer in a project that produced Rich Citations, which were an extensive expansion to the capabilities of digital cross-referencing across the PLOS platform.[12]. Later, around the publishing of his first book, "What is Real?", Becker was appointed as a visiting scholar at the Office for History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley[13]. In 2020 he accepted a position as a visiting researcher in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, at University of California, Irvine[14].[3]

Becker has also been a member of the California Quantum Interpretation Network, "a research collaboration among faculty and staff at multiple UC campuses and other universities across California, focusing on the interpretation of quantum physics."[13]

Becker has announced ongoing work on a new publication that takes a step away from the controversy of his first book and instead explores the relationship between science and the Consumer Tech Industry that has evolved and been promulgated across the world from the Silicon Valley of California. This new project has an estimated publication date of "late 2023".[3]

Publication of What is Real?[edit]

In 2016, Becker received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to research and publish a written work concerning the history, development, and controversy surrounding the study and development of the mysticized field of Quantum Foundations.[15] The resulting work, What is Real? (2018),[16] focused on the question of what exactly quantum physics says about the nature of reality.

Despite the fact that every physicist agrees that quantum physics works, a bitter debate has raged over its meaning for the past ninety years, since the theory was first developed.[17]

The book deals with the personalities behind the competing interpretations of quantum physics as well as the historical factors that influenced the debate—factors such as military spending on physics research due to World War II, the Cold War ethos that caused the eschewing of physicists thought to be Marxist, the assumed infallibility of John von Neumann, the sexism that quashed the work of Grete Hermann (the female mathematician who first spotted von Neumann's error), and the sway of prominent philosophical schools of the period, like the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. Niels Bohr appears in the book as the charismatic figure whose stature and obtuse writing style made it hard for alternate interpretations to be voiced. The book also challenges the popular portrayal of Albert Einstein as a behind-the-times thinker who couldn't accept the new paradigm. Becker argues that Einstein's thought experiments aimed at quantum dynamics are not stodgy quibbles with the seeming randomness of quantum physics, as characterized by the popularity of the quote that "God does not play dice". Rather, Einstein's thought experiments are apt critiques of violations of the principle of locality.[18]

Reception[edit]

"What is Real?" was given mostly positive reviews by lay and expert audiences alike, including the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, and New Scientist, among others,[19][4][20][21][22][23][24][25].

In Physics Today, philosopher David Wallace called the book "a superb contribution both to popular understanding of quantum theory and to ongoing debates among experts."[26] And in the journal Nature, Ramin Skibba said "What Is Real? is an argument for keeping an open mind. Becker reminds us that we need humility as we investigate the myriad interpretations and narratives that explain the same data."[27] The journal Science explained, "What Is Real? offers an engaging and accessible overview of the debates surrounding the interpretation of quantum mechanics,".[21]

Physicist Sheldon Glashow wrote a critical review, saying, "I found it distasteful to find a trained astrophysicist invoking a conspiracy by physicists and physics teachers to foist the Copenhagen interpretation upon naive students of quantum mechanics".[28] A review in the journal Science declared the project to be the sporadically accurate presentation of an "oversimplified" summary of either imaginary or merely ostensible conflicts between very complex schools of thought.[21] Reviews in Science News and the American Journal of Physics were also negative, similarly criticizing the book for numerous historical inaccuracies and philosophical oversimplifications.[29][30]

The book was nominated for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and Physics World Magazine's Book of the Year Award.[31][32]

Selected publications[edit]

Books

  • Becker, Adam (March 20, 2018). What is real? : the unfinished quest for the meaning of quantum physics (First ed.). New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-465-09605-3. OCLC 1015259283.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Articles and websites

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Adam Becker :: Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, & Society". Retrieved April 15, 2023.
  2. ^ Becker, Adam; Huterer, Dragan (2012). "First Constraints on the Running of Non-Gaussianity". Physical Review Letters. 109 (12). Cornell University: 121302. arXiv:1207.5788. Bibcode:2012PhRvL.109l1302B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.121302. PMID 23005935. S2CID 10108151.
  3. ^ a b c d e Becker, Adam. "Adam Becker". Freelance Astrophysicist. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  4. ^ a b Albert, David. "Quantum's Leaping Lizards". NYBooks.com. New York Review of Books. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  5. ^ "Why Does Time Always Run Forwards and Never Backwards?". bbc.com. The British Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  6. ^ Becker, Adam (March 20, 2018). "The Puzzle Of Quantum Reality". npr.org. National Public Radio. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  7. ^ "Quantum Time Machine: How the Future Can Change What Happens Now". newscientist.com. New Scientist Magazine. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  8. ^ "Physicists Criticize Stephen Wolfram's 'Theory of Everything'". scientificamerican.com. Scientific American. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  9. ^ Becker, Adam (February 5, 2019). "From Black Holes to Breakfast, Three Books Show How Einstein's Legacy Lives On". The New York Times. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  10. ^ "What is good science?". aeon.co. Aeon. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  11. ^ "Quantum Gambling and the Nature of Reality". pbs.org. PBS. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  12. ^ "Rich Citations: Open Data about the Network of Research". plos.org. The Public Library of Science. Archived from the original on October 25, 2014. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  13. ^ a b "Adam Becker". CSTMS. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  14. ^ "Past Visiting Scholars". uci.edu. University of California at Irvine. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  15. ^ "Grants Database". Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
  16. ^ "Adam Becker". basicbooks.com. Basic Books. August 8, 2017. ISBN 9780465096060. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  17. ^ Becker, Adam (2018). What is Real?. New York: Basic Books. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-465-09605-3.
  18. ^ Becker, Adam (March 20, 2018). What is Real? : The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics (First ed.). New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-465-09605-3. OCLC 1015259283.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  19. ^ Gleick, James (May 8, 2018). "What Does Quantum Physics Actually Tell Us About the World?". The New York Times. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  20. ^ "What is Real?". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved April 10, 2019.
  21. ^ a b c Frappier, Melanie (March 30, 2018). "Questioning quantum mechanics". Science. 359 (6383). AAAS: 1474. Bibcode:2018Sci...359.1474F. doi:10.1126/science.aas9190. S2CID 13689170. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  22. ^ Brooks, Michael. "What Is Real? A tale of how big egos hijacked quantum physics". New Scientist. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  23. ^ Iain, Dale-Trotter (December 2, 2018). "The Quantum Heretics". Physics World. IOP Publishing. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  24. ^ Maudlin, Tim. "The Defeat of Reason". Bostonreview.net. Boston Review. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  25. ^ Crumey, Andrew (March 16, 2018). "'What Is Real?' Review: Quarks and Quandaries". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 10, 2019.
  26. ^ Wallace, David (2018). "Quantum foundations still not cemented". Physics Today. 71 (11): 51–52. Bibcode:2018PhT....71k..51W. doi:10.1063/PT.3.4070.
  27. ^ Skibba, Ramin (2018). "Einstein, Bohr and the war over quantum theory". Nature. 555 (7698): 582–584. Bibcode:2018Natur.555..582S. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-03793-2. PMID 32099168. S2CID 4403170.
  28. ^ Glashow, Sheldon Lee (October 19, 2018). "Not So Real". Inference. 4 (2). Inference: International Review of Science. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  29. ^ Siegfried, Tom (January 6, 2019). "'Beyond Weird' and 'What Is Real?' try to make sense of quantum weirdness". Science News. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
  30. ^ Fuchs, Christopher A. (2018). "What is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics". American Journal of Physics. 86 (12): 957–959. arXiv:1809.05147. Bibcode:2018AmJPh..86..957F. doi:10.1119/1.5053411. S2CID 239612503.
  31. ^ "2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Longlist Announced". EO Wilson Foundation. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  32. ^ Commissariat, Tushna (April 7, 2019). "Physics World's shortlist for Book of the Year 2018". Physics World.
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