Similar to oscillating neutrinos, MIT’s David Kaiser is in a superposition of distinct academic states: Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science in the program in science, technology, and society; professor of physics in the physics department; and associate dean for social and ethical responsibilities of computing in MIT’s Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing.
Paul Dirac, John Ray, and Jack Heneisen discuss quantum mechanics in 1971.
Paul Dirac, John Ray, and Jack Heneisen discuss quantum mechanics in 1971.
Kaiser’s latest book, Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World, illustrates the depth and range of his unique chimerical superposition. In 19 short vignettes, which represent a distinguished career of scholarship and popular science writing, Kaiser weaves a story of quantum mechanics that reflects his multiple vocational interests. He moves seamlessly from explaining his work as a particle cosmologist on ingenious Bell test experiments to tracing the history of the expression “the physicists’ war.”
Two decades after completing PhDs in both physics and the history of science, Kaiser has put together a thoughtful interdisciplinary investigation of the legacies of quantum mechanics. Although an edited volume with multiple authors might have offered more perspectives, Kaiser presents a work of coherence, accessibility, and rhetorical power not generally found in those volumes. The chapters in Quantum Legacies are organized, roughly by topic, into four parts: “Quanta,” “Calculating,” “Matter,” and “Cosmos.” But what makes the book stand out is how Kaiser weaves those topics together using three rhetorical threads: conceptual development, historical analysis, and reflective memoir.
Kaiser is a popular science writer with a clear command of his subject matter and deep pedagogical sensibilities. He deftly teaches a lay audience about the foundational quantum principles and paradoxes that have made the topic so exciting and perplexing over the past century. But he doesn’t stop at the well-trodden foundations; Kaiser also introduces readers to more speculative cosmological theories, including multiverses. Those nontechnical, conceptual discussions run alongside insightful and probing historical analyses that reveal the inner workings of scientific practice.
The selected episodes in the history of quantum mechanics reveal the social and contingent nature of scientific research. Kaiser does not paint idealized caricatures of solitary scientific heroes toiling toward inevitable discovery. He instead creates nuanced portraits of scientists, such as Paul Dirac, carefully situated within their proper contexts and constrained by institutional and social forces. Kaiser’s quantum actors are driven not by random fits of isolated inspiration but by conversation and collaboration with colleagues.
The final rhetorical thread running through the book is Kaiser’s use of reflective memoir. He complements his conceptual and historical analyses with his experiences as a physics student and as a particle cosmologist. For example, readers are transported to the front lines of Kaiser’s cosmic Bell collaboration with, among others, physicist Anton Zeilinger. Whether he’s describing cosmic entanglement experiments in Vienna or the final data collection at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Islands, Kaiser is fully immersed and infuses his narrative with firsthand accounts and expertise. His personal interjections are at times disarming; we see his vulnerability in asides about his twins, wife, sister, and mother. Overall, the use of memoir gives Quantum Legacies a refreshing sense of accessibility and legitimacy.
Those distinct threads help reinforce and articulate a rigorous examination of physics pedagogy and training in the context of evolving Cold War tensions. With exacting historical analysis, Kaiser tracks the shifting meaning of the phrase “the physicists’ war.” When it was first invoked by James Conant, the phrase referenced a “massive, urgent educational mission” to teach elementary physics to enlisted men. However, by the end of the war, the phrase evoked visions of heroic physicists taming nuclear energy and inventing radar. The spotlight made physicists vulnerable to political attacks during the McCarthy-era Red Scare, but it also drove an unchecked inflation in physics funding—and university course enrollments.
As “the cold war of the classrooms” escalated, a “‘standing army’ of physicists” was stockpiled like any other war commodity. Kaiser treats that physics inflation as a speculative bubble that eventually ruptured around 1970, briefly re-formed as a secondary bubble in the 1980s, and then ruptured again at the end of the Cold War. In subsequent discussion, he illustrates the uneven impact of those speculative cycles on physics textbooks, pedagogy, creation of subfields, scientific institutions, and the scope and effectiveness of physics research.
Kaiser has woven together a unique, compelling, and kaleidoscopic portrait of the quantum revolution and its implications. He doesn’t hide from the messiness of science but embraces the challenge of understanding its underlying human and social conditions. The book isn’t perfect; Kaiser repurposes some shorter essays that appear analytically thin. For example, the account of LIGO’s detection of gravitational waves seems to me a missed opportunity to reveal the institutional dynamics and intrigue surrounding the observatory’s history and funding. But in the context of the whole book, that criticism is a quibble. Students in my quantum seminar this fall will certainly be grappling with Quantum Legacies.
José G. Perillán is an assistant professor of physics and science, technology, and society at Vassar College. His scholarship focuses on the varied impacts of scientific storytelling. Perillán's forthcoming book, Science Between Myth and History, is scheduled for release in spring 2021 from the Oxford University Press.