Book reviews: science

It goes like this. Conventional quantum theory is an epistemological theory: it delineates how and what we can measure about the world, and how to compute the probabilities of outcomes of experiments. It does not purport to explain what is really going on -- it doesn't take the point of view that ``This is reality and this is how it works''.

This is where Bohm and Hiley come in. They propose an underlying reality that gives a ``complete'' and consistent mental model. It predicts exactly the same outcomes to all experiments (except if one can find a domain in which general relativity breaks down), so one can't hope to ``prove'' or ``disprove'' this model in the ordinary experimental sense.

The authors show their model to be complete, economical, and to have many fewer blemishes in comparison with other interpretations, e.g. the (several) many-worlds interpretations.

If you're at all interested in quantum theory, read (or skim) this book. Recommended.

Interesting, but the 20-year-old parts are really dated. For example, he talks about IBM renting memory for such-and-such dollars per kilobyte per month. Ok, the point is that space matters, but one can't help but think how much of the book is twisted by that kind of restriction. Another example, the chapter on "The Surgical Team" recommends that each expert programmer be supported by 9 other people, at least half of whom are doing purely clerical work. And surely, the one who does system administration, can be shared by teams of programmers! Anyway, I found the main value of the book in three of the last chapters, which were written since 1986 (including the famous No Silver Bullet essay). These are thoughtful and, thankfully, thoroughly up to date. However, anyone who has to design software ought to read this book.

On a related topic, I found the October 1995 Communications of the ACM article about the use of object-oriented tools and techniques in the reimplementation of OS/400 by IBM to be very interesting. Go look at it.

I happen to disagree with Penrose, though I think he should be heard. (Note added after finishing: Boy does he really lose it in the last two chapters! IMHO, he has a very naive view what the mind is all about. Sour ending. Blech.)

For the strong-AI point of view, read Goedel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstader. This book was way too slow for me. I only got about one quarter through it. It did win the Pulitzer prize, though.