Adam Becker

Adam Becker (born 1984) is an American astrophysicist and popularizer of science. He is a visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley.^[1]​ His book What Is Real? explores the history and personalities of the foundations of quantum physics and reassesses the prominence of the views often grouped together as the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Life[]

Born in New Jersey in 1984, Becker received his BA in philosophy and physics from Cornell in 2006, a MS in Physics from University of Michigan in 2007 and a PhD in Physics from University of Michigan with Dragen Huterer as his doctoral advisor in 2012. His thesis was on primordial non-Gaussianity, which he summarized in popular terms as, "I was trying to find out how much we can learn about the way stuff was arranged in the early universe by looking at the way stuff is arranged in the universe right now."^[2]​

Becker worked at New Scientist magazine, and he was a researcher in the Labs division of the Public Library of Science (PLOS). As of 2018, he was a visiting scholar at the Office for History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley.^[2]​

Becker joined the California Quantum Interpretation Network, "a research collaboration among faculty and staff at multiple UC campuses and other universities across California, focusing on the interpretation of quantum physics."^[3]​

What is Real?[]

In 2016, Becker received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to write a book.^[4]​ The resulting work, What is Real? (2018),^[3]​ focused on the question of what exactly quantum physics says about the nature of reality.

Despite the fact that every physicist agrees that quantum physics works, a bitter debate has raged over its meaning for the past ninety years, since the theory was first developed.^[5]

The book deals with the personalities behind the competing interpretations of quantum physics as well as the historical factors that influenced the debate—factors such as military spending on physics research due to World War II, the Cold War ethos that caused the eschewing of physicists thought to be Marxist, the assumed infallibility of John von Neumann, the sexism that quashed the work of Grete Hermann (the female mathematician who first spotted von Neumann's error), and the sway of prominent philosophical schools of the period, like the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. Niels Bohr looms large in the book as the charismatic figure whose stature and obtuse writing style made it hard for alternate interpretations to be voiced. The book also challenges the popular portrayal of Albert Einstein as a behind-the-times thinker who couldn't accept the new paradigm. Becker argues that Einstein's thought experiments aimed at quantum dynamics are not stodgy quibbles with the seeming randomness of quantum physics, as characterized by the popularity of the quote that "God does not play dice". Rather, Einstein's thought experiments are apt critiques of action at a distance.

The book was reviewed by the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Science and New Scientist, among others.^[6]​ ^[7]​ ^[8]​^[9]​^[10]​^[11]​^[12]​ In Physics Today, David Wallace called the book "a superb contribution both to popular understanding of quantum theory and to ongoing debates among experts."^[13]​ In the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Crumey said, "Adam Becker tells a fascinating if complex story of quantum dissidents."^[14]​ And in Nature, Ramin Skibba said "What Is Real? is an argument for keeping an open mind. Becker reminds us that we need humility as we investigate the myriad interpretations and narratives that explain the same data."^[15]​ The book was among the finalists for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and Physics World magazine's Book of the Year.^[16]​^[17]​ Reviews in Science News and the American Journal of Physics were more negative, criticizing the book for historical inaccuracies and philosophical oversimplifications.^[18]​^[19]​ Sheldon Lee Glashow was also critical.^[20]​ In his blog, Peter Woit took issue with what he saw as Becker's vilification of Niels Bohr and endorsement of Hugh Everett's Many-worlds interpretation, to which Becker replied that he intended to do neither.^[21]​

Selected publications[]

Books

• Becker, Adam (March 20, 2018). What is real? : the unfinished quest for the meaning of quantum physics (First ed.). New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-465-09605-3. OCLC 1015259283.

Articles and websites

• Becker, Adam (February 5, 2019). "From Black Holes to Breakfast, Three Books Show How Einstein's Legacy Lives On". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 30, 2019.
• Becker, Adam, "The Big Questions", BBC Reel, BBC, retrieved November 30, 2019 (BBC animated video series)
• Becker, Adam. "Why does time always run forwards and never backwards?". BBC. Retrieved November 30, 2019.
• Becker, Adam. "'Light Of The Stars' Looks To Other Planets To Illuminate Climate Change On Earth". NPR.org. Retrieved November 30, 2019.
• Scientific American: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-difficult-birth-of-the-many-worlds-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics/
• New Scientist: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929274-200-wormhole-entanglement-gives-space-time-the-bends/
• NOVA: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/quantum-gambling-and-the-nature-of-reality/
• Interactive Description of Bell's Theorem: https://freelanceastro.github.io/bell/
• Aeon:https://aeon.co/essays/a-fetish-for-falsification-and-observation-holds-back-science
• Undark:https://undark.org/article/junk-science-or-real-thing-inference/

References[]