Saturday, July 2, 2011

New age physics book

I had low expections for The Dancing Wu Li Masters:
The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav is a popular new age book from 1979 about mysticist interpretations of quantum physics. ... The author participated in a physics conference of eastern and western scientists at Esalen Institute, California, in 1976 and used the occasion as material for his book.
The 123 Amazon reviews are mostly favorable, but some say that it is bad physics.

Zukav is not a physicist, but his book is surprisingly good. There are a lot of good physics explanations mixed in with an occasional new age speculation. You can learn a lot by reading his book. It also has metaphysical statements like this:
The Copenhagen interpretation was, in effect, a recognition of the limitations of left hemispheric thought ... [chap.2, p.65]
Okay, it is a little wacky, but I say that Brian Greene is worse because he claims to speak with authority and Wu-Li does a better job of separating fact from fiction.

Here is the whole pdf book.

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