Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Musser is very determined to convince the reader that there is something mysterious going on in the universe. He spends a lot of time explaining various scientists theories as to what is behind the mystery. Yet he spends little time actually explaining the experiments that prove there is actually something mysterious going on. His explanation of "entanglement" seems to say that if you create two objects which are identical and you examine both of them after one of them has been moved across the room, that it is a surprise that they are in fact still identical. A better explanation of the mysterious experiments which cause scientists to be so surprised, would add much needed clarity to the subject. He also speaks about Schrodinger's cat without spending any time explaining that thought experiment. It would have been helpful to have that item covered in some detail. I got the distinct feeling that Musser didn't really understand the science very well so he decided to write as an historian of science instead so he could avoid the science and stick to quoting scientists and cataloging their debates. As a result, he does cover just about every theory that anyone has hypothesized that relates to the subject with the exception of the "Turtles All The Way Down" theory. The problem with these theories is that they seek to incorporate all the things that are known about the universe but none of them seems to be sufficiently robust to make scientifically testable predictions not to mention, how such tests might actually be carried out. One gets the distinct feeling that our human ability to think at the required level of abstraction coupled with our inability to test at the energies and scales required makes further significant progress in physics rather unlikely. The book is very readable but was not very helpful to me in understanding the substance of the issues or even the basis for the arguments for and against non-locality. But my guess is that writing about physics will prove to be more rewarding than doing the science therein for the foreseeable future.