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Quantum computers, quantum cryptography, and even quantum AI—a century after the discovery of an unexpected physical world, researchers are putting this puzzling science to work in dazzling new ways.

In this exhilarating and mind-bending book, renowned scientist and author Paul Davies offers readers a glimpse of how quantum physics has led to a quantum technology revolution. Quantum 2.0 reveals how today’s brightest minds are harnessing exotic states of matter that have no counterpart in everyday life. Specifically, all eyes are on entanglement, called “spooky” by Einstein, which links the activities of separated particles even across vast distances.

By manipulating these weird properties of atoms, electrons, and photons, scientists are driving the burgeoning field of “quantum information science,” featuring new tools such as quantum computers, quantum cryptography, and the quantum internet. In turn, their efforts have attracted billions of dollars in investments and triggered a frantic quantum arms race between nations. At the same time, theorists are taking a closer look at quantum systems themselves, which possess properties that defy intuition and shred everyday notions of reality. Davies explains how researchers, including himself, are wrestling with quantum theory to make sense of this realm, where ghostly quantum particles produce tiny forces in nanotechnology, cause black holes to evaporate, and may even contribute to the universe’s accelerating expansion. A trusted guide, Davies takes readers from the basic concepts to today’s cutting edge, inviting us all to glimpse the wonderland of quantum physics and its stunning implications.

A new approach to the quantum measurement dilemma.

With relativity theory, quantum mechanics stands as the conceptual foundation of modern physics. It forms the basis by which we understand the minute workings of the subatomic world. But at its core lies a paradox: standard conceptions of quantum mechanics imply that the results of many of the actual measurements supporting and verifying quantum mechanical theory can have no definite outcomes. Some quantity such as position or momentum is always indefinite on a quantum system; and if an indefinite quantity is measured, the macroscopic state of the measuring apparatus that is supposed to record the outcome instead becomes indefinite itself. In Quantum Measurement, editors Richard A. Healey and Geoffrey Hellman marshal the resources of leading physicists and philosophers of science, skillfully joining their insights and ingenuity to yield some of the most innovative and altogether promising thought to date on this enigmatic issue.