"In the bouncing groove of an oil droplet, Adam Forrest Kay finds a new way to look at quantum mechanics--one that replaces randomness and mystery with new knowledge. Supported by a brilliantly told history and philosophy of physics, this book will change how you think about the field's past. And it may just set a new path for its future."--Stephon Alexander, author of Fear of a Black Universe
"Whatever you think of Kay's efforts to overturn the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, and to justify Einstein by re-establishing classical norms of causality and determinism, his history of the whole wave/particle debate, from ancient Greece onwards, is authoritative and encyclopedic--and also intriguingly suggests that the purely scientific arguments were in part outweighed by an element of the straightforwardly human."--Michael Frayn, playwright and novelist
"Kay has written a book that lays out with great clarity the central issue in modern physics: Are quantum-mechanical probabilities quite different in nature from all the others in physics and life? The reader will enjoy fascinating details from a great sweep of history and Kay's skill in explaining key technical facts with enviable simplicity."--Julian Barbour, author of The Janus Point
"Adam Kay has written a rollicking account of the history of science -- and human intellectual folly. Rare in its irreverence towards the hallowed ground of quantum foundations, Escape from Shadow Physics is a must read for quantum dissidents."--John W. M. Bush, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Adam Kay has accomplished a real tour de force: he has covered almost the entire history of science to illustrate the failure of instrumentalist or positivist approaches; this leads him to a radical critique of the current dominant view of quantum physics, known as the Copenhagen interpretation. Kay's critique is based in part on the pilot-wave theory and the hydrodynamic quantum analogues. This book will be a landmark in the history and philosophy of physics."--Jean Bricmont, Catholic University of Louvain
"Reads like a novel, in which the biographies of major physical concepts are intertwined with the biographies of the great minds that shaped them. The reader will be surprised by the clarity of Kay's arguments."--Ana María Cetto, author of The Emerging Quantum
"A rigorous investigation... Readers will be enlightened."--Publishers Weekly
"Energetically written in short chapters interspersed with digressions into other episodes of scientific wrongturnings, Escape From Shadow Physics is consistently interesting...Mr.Kay rightly highlights the limitations of current physics."--Andrew Crumey, Wall Street Journal
"Artfully written... a splendid history of classical and quantum physics as well as a convincing exposition of hydrodynamic quantum analogs."--Paul Halpern, Science
"Vigorous and engaging...there is plenty to intrigue and entertain."--Times Literary Supplement
"Permeating this agreeably readable work are [Kay's] boundless curiosity, mastery of physics, and command of science history." --Washington Independent Review of Books
"[Kay's] writing on this topic is both precise and seductive... I could gladly spend a year -- or at least an academic semester -- with this book." --Forbes
"Escape from Shadow Physics is a singular addition to the popular literature on quantum interpretations." --Physics World