14 best-selling popular science books like What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam Becker

Cover of What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam  Becker

What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

By: Adam Becker

4.27

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

The untold story of the heretical thinkers who dared to question the nature of our quantum universe…

"Science, done right, works hard to respect absolutely no authority at all other than experience and empirical data. It never succeeds entirely, but it comes closer and has a better track record than any other method we apes have found for learning about the world around us."

-Adam Becker, What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

"Science, done right, works hard to respect absolutely no authority at all other than experience and empirical data. It never succeeds entirely, but it comes closer and has a better track record than any other method we apes have found for learning about the world around us."

-Adam Becker, What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

"Philosophy has an image problem. Philosophers are thought to be mystics, religious figures, bullshit artists—anything divorced from reality... Why is philosophy held in such contempt by many physicists? ... one part of the answer probably lies in the split between the two major branches of modern Western philosophy, Analytic and Continental philosophy. Continental philosophers tend to be much more suspicious of scientific claims about knowledge and truth than are their analytic colleagues. Yet the distinction between the two kinds of philosophy is not apparent from a distance—most scientists have never heard of the analytic-Continental divide. So, given that most of the highly visible philosophers in the public sphere today are Continental, and given the attitude that some (not all) Continental philosophers have toward science, it’s not terribly surprising that scientists often have disdain for all philosophers, and sometimes even think that they can do philosophy better than the philosophers can."

-Adam Becker, What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

"Philosophy has an image problem. Philosophers are thought to be mystics, religious figures, bullshit artists—anything divorced from reality... Why is philosophy held in such contempt by many physicists? ... one part of the answer probably lies in the split between the two major branches of modern Western philosophy, Analytic and Continental philosophy. Continental philosophers tend to be much more suspicious of scientific claims about knowledge and truth than are their analytic colleagues. Yet the distinction between the two kinds of philosophy is not apparent from a distance—most scientists have never heard of the analytic-Continental divide. So, given that most of the highly visible philosophers in the public sphere today are Continental, and given the attitude that some (not all) Continental philosophers have toward science, it’s not terribly surprising that scientists often have disdain for all philosophers, and sometimes even think that they can do philosophy better than the philosophers can."

-Adam Becker, What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

If you liked the popular science plot in What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam Becker , here is a list of 14 books like this:

Cover of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll

1. The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

By: Sean Carroll

4.18

Format: 480 pages, Hardcover

Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in… read more

Similar categories in Sean Carroll's The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • space
  • physics
  • audiobook
"Life is short, and certainty never happens."

-Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

"Intellectual fascination crosses many boundaries."

-Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

"Life is not a substance, like water or rock; it’s a process, like fire or a wave crashing on the shore. It’s a process that begins, lasts for a while, and ultimately ends. Long or short, our moments …"

-Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

"Where misunderstanding dwells, misuse will not be far behind. No theory in the history of science has been more misused and abused by cranks and charlatans—and misunderstood by people struggling in g…"

-Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

Cover of The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind

2. The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

By: Leonard Susskind

4.09

Format: 129 pages, Hardcover

What happens when something is sucked into a black hole? Does it disappear? Three decades ago, a yo… read more

Similar categories in Leonard Susskind's The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • history
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • space
  • physics
  • science
Cover of Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality by None

3. Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality

By: None

3.36

Format: 317 pages, Hardcover

Our Mathematical Universeis a journey to explore the mysteries uncovered by cosmology and to discov… read more

Similar categories in None's Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • science
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • audiobook

4. Reality is Not What it Seems

By: Carlo Rovelli

3.17

Format: 120 pages,

From the best-selling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physicscomes a new book about the mind-bendi… read more

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5. QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter

By: Richard P. Feynman

4.50

Format: 34 pages, Paperback

Famous the world over for the creative brilliance of his insights into the physical world, Nobel Pr… read more

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Cover of In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality by John Gribbin

6. In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality

By: John Gribbin

4.06

Format: 320 pages, Paperback

It is so shocking that Einstein could not bring himself to accept it. It is so important that it pr… read more

Similar categories in John Gribbin's In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • history
  • philosophy
  • quantum mechanics
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • science
"If the business of physics is ever finished, the world will be a much less interesting place in which to live . . ."

-John Gribbin, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality

"...it is not the way of science to sit idly back and hope that someone will come up with a "better" answer to our problems. In the absence of a better answer, we have to face up to the implications o…"

-John Gribbin, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality

"In the world of the very small, where particle and wave aspects of reality are equally significant, things do not behave in any way that we can understand from our experience of the everyday world...…"

-John Gribbin, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality

"Heisenberg's uncertainty relation measures the amount by which the complementary descriptions of the electron, or other fundamental entities, overlap. Position is very much a particle property - part…"

-John Gribbin, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality

7. The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics (Theoretical Minimum #1)

By: Leonard Susskind , George Hrabovsky

4.00

Format: 258 pages, Hardcover

A Wall Street JournalBest Book of 2013 A world-class physicist and a citizen scientist combine forc… read more

Similar categories in Leonard Susskind's The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics (Theoretical Minimum #1) book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

8. The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications

By: David Deutsch

3.50

Format: 306 pages, Paperback

For David Deutsch, a young physicist of unusual originality, quantum theory contains our most funda… read more

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Cover of Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will by Robert M. Sapolsky

9. Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

By: Robert M. Sapolsky

4.25

Format: 528 pages, Hardcover

One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the … read more

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  • philosophy
  • science
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"I’m being diplomatic. Many readers will know of the “replication crisis"

-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

"Obviously, imposing these classifications on determinism, free will, and moral responsibility is wildly simplified. A key simplification is pretending that most people have clean “yes"

-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

"You cannot decide all the sensory stimuli in your environment, your hormone levels this morning, whether something traumatic happened to you in the past, the socioeconomic status of your parents, you…"

-Robert M. Sapolsky, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

Cover of The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality by William Egginton

10. The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality

By: William Egginton

4.28

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

A poet, a physicist, and a philosopher explored the greatest enigmas in the universe—the nature of … read more

Similar categories in William Egginton's The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • physics
  • audiobook
Cover of Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution by Carlo Rovelli

11. Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution

By: Carlo Rovelli

4.08

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

A startling new look at quantum theory, from the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physi… read more

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  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • quantum mechanics
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • audiobook
"But structures are processes are not there so that organisms can survive and reproduce. It is the other way round: organisms survive and reproduce because these structures have happened to gradually …"

-Carlo Rovelli, Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution

"Credo che uno dei grandi errori che fanno gli esseri umani quando tentano di capire qualcosa sia volere certezze. La ricerca della conoscenza non si nutre di certezze: si nutre di una radicale assenz…"

-Carlo Rovelli, Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution

"In qualunque angolo dell'universo troviamo vertiginosi pozzi di strati di realtà. In questi strati siamo riusciti a riconoscere regolarità, sulle quali abbiamo raccolto informazione rilevante per noi…"

-Carlo Rovelli, Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution

Cover of Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime by Sean Carroll

12. Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

By: Sean Carroll

4.07

Format: 347 pages, Hardcover

As you read these words, copies of you are being created. Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist a… read more

Similar categories in Sean Carroll's Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • quantum mechanics
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • space
  • physics
  • audiobook
"Don't play Quantum Russian Roulette."

-Sean Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

"As far as quantum field theory is concerned, a human being or the center of a star isn’t all that different from empty space."

-Sean Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

"The enigma at the heart of quantum reality can be summed up in a single motto: what we see when we look at the world seems to be fundamentally different from what actually is."

-Sean Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

"If there were some nefarious conspiracy to make the world look quantum-mechanical, it had to have been set up hundreds of years ago, when the light left those stars. It's possible, but doesn't seem l…"

-Sean Carroll, Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime

Cover of White Holes by Carlo Rovelli

13. White Holes

By: Carlo Rovelli

4.10

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

A mesmerizing trip to the strange world of white holes from the bestselling author of Seven Brief L… read more

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  • science
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • space
  • physics
  • audiobook
Cover of Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions by Sabine Hossenfelder

14. Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

By: Sabine Hossenfelder

3.92

Format: 269 pages, Kindle Edition

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “An informed and entertaining guide to what science can and cannot t… read more

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  • science
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • audiobook
"Sometimes the only scientific answer we can give is 'We don't know."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

"Today I think they don't teach the principle of least action in school because then everybody would go and study physics."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

"There are no exact metaphors, not for quantum mechanics and not for anything else, because if they were exact, they wouldn't be metaphors."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

"Instead of thinking of ourselves as selecting possible futures, I suggest we remain curious about what's to come and strive to learn more about ourselves and the universe we inhabit."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

Cover of What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam  Becker

15. What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

By: Adam Becker

4.27

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

The untold story of the heretical thinkers who dared to question the nature of our quantum universe… read more

Similar categories in Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • audiobook
  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • quantum mechanics
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • space
  • physics
  • technology
"Science, done right, works hard to respect absolutely no authority at all other than experience and empirical data. It never succeeds entirely, but it comes closer and has a better track record than …"

-Adam Becker, What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

"Philosophy has an image problem. Philosophers are thought to be mystics, religious figures, bullshit artists—anything divorced from reality... Why is philosophy held in such contempt by many physicis…"

-Adam Becker, What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

Cover of Beyond Weird by Philip Ball

16. Beyond Weird

By: Philip Ball

4.11

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

'This is the book I wish I could have written but am very glad I've read' Jim Al-Khalili ‘I thin… read more

Similar categories in Philip Ball's Beyond Weird book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • quantum mechanics
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • audiobook
"Quantum theory had the strangest genesis,"

-Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

"[C]lassical physics is just a special case of quantum physics."

-Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

"Cabe decir que los genios tienen más posibilidades de incurrir en el error que la media."

-Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

"Creer que el genio conlleva estar libre de error es malinterpretar la naturaleza de la creatividad y el entendimiento."

-Philip Ball, Beyond Weird

Cover of The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life by Paul C.W. Davies

17. The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life

By: Paul C.W. Davies

4.04

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

'A gripping new drama in science ... if you want to understand how the concept of life is changing,… read more

Similar categories in Paul C.W. Davies's The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • science
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • technology
"Network theory confirms the view that information can take on 'a life of its own'. In the yeast network my colleagues found that 40 per cent of node pairs that are correlated via information transfer…"

-Paul C.W. Davies, The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life

"To conclude: time doesn’t pass. (I hope the reader is now convinced!) Well, what does pass, then? I shall argue that it is the conscious awareness of the fleeting self that changes from moment to mom…"

-Paul C.W. Davies, The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life

"More radically, how can we be sure that the source of consciousness lies within our bodies at all? You might think that because a blow to the head renders one unconscious, the ‘seat of consciousness’…"

-Paul C.W. Davies, The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life

Cover of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray by Sabine Hossenfelder

18. Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

By: Sabine Hossenfelder

4.06

Format: 291 pages, Hardcover

A contrarian argues that modern physicists' obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but b… read more

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  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • audiobook
"The main reason we use math in physics, however, is because we can."

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

"foundational physics, which is far from experimental test as science can be while still being science"

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

"if you quote this, you can be the first person to quote someone quoting someone quoting himself quoting someone"

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

"Theoretical physicists used to explain what was observed. Now they try to explain why they can't explain what was not observed"

-Sabine Hossenfelder, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

Cover of Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe by Paul Sen

19. Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe

By: Paul Sen

4.26

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

This entertaining, eye-opening account of how the laws of thermodynamics are essential to understan… read more

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  • audiobook
  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • technology
Cover of Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality by Anil Ananthaswamy

20. Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality

By: Anil Ananthaswamy

4.25

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

One of Smithsonian 's Favorite Books of 2018 One of Forbes 's 2018 Best Books About Astronomy, Phys… read more

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  • science
  • history
  • philosophy
  • quantum mechanics
  • nonfiction
  • popular science
  • physics
  • audiobook
Cover of Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe by George Musser

21. Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe

By: George Musser

4.10

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A revelatory exploration of why a "theory of everything" is likely to depend on a theory of mind. … read more

Similar categories in George Musser's Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe book and Adam Becker's What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics

  • audiobook
  • science
  • philosophy
  • nonfiction
  • physics
  • technology

14 Best audiobook books like What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam Becker

Transform Your Habits

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

Sean Carroll

4.18

Transform Your Habits

Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality

None

3.36

Transform Your Habits

Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

Robert M. Sapolsky

4.25

Transform Your Habits

The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality

William Egginton

4.28

View all the books

20 must-read audiobook books like The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality by William Egginton

Transform Your Habits

The Passenger (The Passenger #1)

Cormac McCarthy

3.58

Transform Your Habits

Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

Robert M. Sapolsky

4.25

Transform Your Habits

The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality

William Egginton

4.28

Transform Your Habits

Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters

Brian Klaas

4.13

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