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Speaking to my friends and family about my job I often receive the question of what quantum mechanics really is.

I always find very time-expensive to explain it with no technical informations and without telling them those silly wrong analogies that go like "I have 2 colored balls, I take and measure the colour, i know the color of the other".

Question

I was wondering whether or not a valid$^1$ divulgative book about the topic exists, so that I can suggest it to my friends and family on demand.

A collection of different books covering the topic when taken all together is also considered a good recommendation.

$^1$ By valid I mean that explains what actually QM is about, so not a collection of those analogies which are just misleading non-true statements.

Qmechanic
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LolloBoldo
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2 Answers2

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One book that I would recommend is Thirty Years that Shook Physics, by George Gamow. The book takes a historical approach to explaining what quantum mechanics is all about. It literally takes on from Plank, Einstein and Bohr to Heisenberg, Born, De Broglie and Schrodinger. The book is also not a mere narrative, it does go to length to describe the correspondence principle, canonical commutation, the uncertainty principle and wave particle duality. The ending sections even touch on QFT and cosmology. All of this is done with absolutely minimal mathematical formalism; there are some formulae presented, however, the written explanations are rather good. Overall, a great story that teaches physics in an historical context; plus Gamow's reputation speaks for itself. One caveat, the book is older, however, I would not let that stand in the way; it also doesn't cover topics like entanglement, EPR or Bell's inequality. A good starting point, however, that would allow the newcomer to better appreciate phenomena like entanglement in the first place.

Albertus Magnus
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"The Fabric of Reality" and "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch both include good content on QM and don't require doing any maths although knowing some basic high school stuff about geometry might be useful.

"QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter" by Feynman is also good and anyone who knows some basic high school geometry shouldn't struggle with it.

alanf
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