The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics

by Kakalios, James

  110 “Buck Rogers newspaper strip published in 1929”: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Dailies, vol. 1, 1929- 1930, written by Philip Nowlan and drawn by Richard Calkins (Hermes Press, 2008).

  111 Secret Service Operator No. 5, issue # 47, written by Wayne Rogers (under the pen name Curtis Steele) (Sept. 1939).

  111 The World Set Free, H. G. Wells (Quiet Vision Publishing, 2000).

  112 The Interpretation of Radium: Being the Substance of Six Free Popular Experimental Lectures Delivered at the University of Glasgow, Frederick Soddy (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1909).

  112 “This novel made a strong impression on one particular reader”: Different Engines: How Science Drives Fiction and Fiction Drives Science, Mark L. Brake and Neil Hook (Macmillan, 2008).

  CHAPTER 10

  114 Them! written by Ted Sherdeman, Russell Hughes, and George Worthing Yates and directed by Gordon Douglas (Warner Bros., 1954).

  114 The Amazing Colossal Man, written by Mark Hanna and Bert I. Gordon and directed by Bert I. Gordon (Malibu Productions, 1957).

  114 War of the Colossal Beast, written by Bert I. Gordon and George Worthing Yates and directed by Bert I. Gordon (Carmel Productions,1958).

  114 The Beginning of the End, written by Fred Freiberger and Lester Gorn and directed by Bert I. Gordon (AB-PT Pictures Corp., 1957).

  114 It Came from Beneath the Sea, written by George Worthing Yates and Hal Smith and directed by Robert Gordon (Clover Productions, 1955).

  114 The Attack of the Giant Leeches, written by Leo Gordon and directed by Bernard L. Kowalski (American International Pictures, 1959).

  114 The Incredible Shrinking Man, written by Richard Matheson and directed by Jack Arnold (Universal, 1957).

  114 Dr. Cyclops, written by Tom Kilpatrick and directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack (Paramount, 1940).

  116 “Even though the nucleus can lower its energy by ejecting an alpha particle”: The Atom and Its Nucleus, George Gamow (Prentice Hall, 1961).

  117 “One important similarity between the lottery scenario and the decay of unstable nuclei”: The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone, Kenneth W. Ford (Harvard University Press, 2004).

  119 Learn How Dagwood Splits the Atom, written by John Dunning and Louis Heil and drawn by Joe Musial (King Features Syndicate, 1949).

  119-120 “why is there any tritium still around”: The Atom and Its Nucleus, George Gamow (Prentice Hall, 1961).

  120 “Sheldon Kauffman and Willard F. Libby did the next best thing”: “The Natural Distribution of Tritium,” Sheldon Kaufman and W. F. Libby, Physical Review 93 (1954), p. 1337. See http://link.aps.org/abstract/PR/v93/p1337 for this article.

  124 “Elements that emit gamma rays, alpha particles, or beta particles”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  125 (figure caption) Buck Rogers ray-gun image from Raygun, Eugene W. Metcalf and Frank Maresca, photographed by Charles Bechtold (Fotofolio, 1999).

  125 (figure caption) Penetration of matter by radiation image adapted from www.hyperphysics.phys-astr.gsu.edu Web site.

  126 “Russian journalist Alexander Litvinenko was murdered”: The Terminal Spy: A True Story of Espionage, Betrayal and Murder, Alan S. Crowell (Broadway, 2008).

  127 “When some of these particles strike the DNA in our cells”: “Cosmic Rays: A Review for Astrobiologists,” Franco Ferrari and Ewa Szuszkiewicz, Astrobiology 9, 413 (2009).

  CHAPTER 11

  128 “In the 1962 Gold Key comic book series”: Doctor Solar—Man of the Atom, written by Paul S. Newman and drawn by Bob Fujitani (Gold Key Comics, 1962), reprinted in Doctor Solar—Man of the Atom, vols. 1-4 (Dark Horse Books, 2004-2008).

  129 “Captain Atom”: Space Adventures # 33, written by Joe Gill and Steve Ditko and drawn by Steve Ditko (Charlton Comics, Mar. 1960), reprinted in Action Hero Archives, vol. 1 (DC Comics, 2004).

  129 Dr. Solar, Man of the Atom # 14, written by Paul S. Newman and drawn by Frank Bolle (Gold Key Comics, Sept. 1965), reprinted in Doctor Solar—Man of the Atom, vol. 2 (Dark Horse Books, 2005).

  130 “Neutrons themselves are not stable”: The Story of Quantum Mechanics, Victor Guillemin (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968).

  131 “When physicists in the late 1920s discovered this phenomenon”: Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, George Gamow (Dover, 1985).

  132 “fortunately this inverse process occurs constantly in the center of the sun”: “Nuclear Astrophysics,” M. Arnould and K. Takahashi, Rep. Prog. Phys. 62, 395 (1999).

  133 (figure caption) Image adapted from www.hyperphysics.phys-astr.gsu.edu Web site.

  134 (footnote) “To this Eddington replied in 1920”: “Arthur Stanley Eddington: A Centennial Tribute,” Joe S. Tenn, Mercury 11 (1982), p. 178.

  135 “the average photon spends forty thousand years colliding”: “How Long Does It Take for Heat to Flow Through the Sun?” G. Fiorentini and B. Rici, Comments on Modern Physics 1 (1999), p. 49.

  135 “Our sun converts a great deal of hydrogen”: “The Evolution and Explosion of Massive Stars,” S. E. Woolsey and A. Heger, Reviews of Modern Physics 74 (Oct. 2002), p. 1015.

  136 “For more than fifty years, scientists have been attempting to construct a fusion reactor”: Sun in a Bottle, Charles Seife (Viking, 2008); “Fusion’s False Dawn,” Michael Moyer, Scientific American 302, 50 (2010).

  136 “This so-called cold fusion process”: Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion, Gary Taubes (Random House, 1993).

  CHAPTER 12

  141 “The agreement between theoretical predictions”: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Richard P. Feynman (Princeton University Press, 1988).

  142 “The collective behavior of quantum particles”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  144 “Think about a ribbon”: The argument involving a ribbon with different colors on each side is adapted from that in “The Reason for Antiparticles,” Richard P. Feynman, in Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics, Richard P. Feynman and Steven Weinberg (Cambridge University Press, 1987). Feynman credits this analogy to David Finkelstein.

  146 “described as the difference of two functions, A and B”: The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone, Kenneth W. Ford (Harvard University Press, 2004).

  148 “Wolfgang Pauli, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics”: Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, George Gamow (Dover, 1985).

  150 “One easy way to satisfy the Pauli principle”: Electrons in Metals: A Short Guide to the Fermi Surface, J. M. Ziman (Taylor and Francis, 1963).

  CHAPTER 13

  155 The Superorganism—The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson (W. W. Norton & Co., 2008).

  155 The Cosmic Rape, Theodore Sturgeon (Pocket Books, 1958).

  155 (footnote) More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon (Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953).

  156 “Bose-Einstein condensate”: The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone, Kenneth W. Ford (Harvard University Press, 2004).

  158 “This symmetry indicates that the two-particle wave function”: Ibid.

  160 Village of the Damned, written by Stirling Silliphant, Wolf Rilla, and Ronald Kinnoch and directed by Wolf Rilla (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1960).

  161 “helium is an example of an atom”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  162 “Experimentalists in 1965,” “Gyroscopic Detection of Persistent Flow of Super fluid Liquid Helium,” J.B. Mehl and W. Zimmermann Jr., Physical Review Letters 14, p. 815 (1965).

  163 “an electrical analog to superfluidity”: The Path of No Resistance: The Story of a Revolution in Superconductivity, Bruce Schechter (Simon and Schuster, 1989); I
ntroduction to Superconductivity, 2nd Edition, Michael Tinkham (Dover, 2004); “Observation of Persistent Current in a Superconducting Solenoid,” J. File and R.G. Mills, Physical Review of Letters 10, p. 93 (1963).

  166 “Max Planck and how his explanation of the spectrum of light”: Quantum Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe, Barry Parker (Prometheus Books, 2002); Men Who Made a New Physics, Barbara Lovett Cline (University of Chicago Press, 1987).

  167 “What if the box were filled with light”: Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory, George Gamow (Dover, 1985).

  168 “The box containing light can be considered a gas of photons”: Ibid.; The Atom and Its Nucleus, George Gamow (Prentice Hall, 1961).

  CHAPTER 14

  173 “In our world the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building”: Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Philip Joes Farmer (Doubleday, 1973); A History of the Doc Savage Adventures, Robert Michael “Bobb” Cotter (McFarland and Company, 2009).

  174 “Dent and his wife lived for several years on a forty-foot schooner”: Lester Dent: The Man, His Craft and His Market, M. Martin McCarey-Laird (Hidalgo Pub. Co., 1994); Bigger Than Life: The Creator of Doc Savage, Marilyn Cannaday (Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990).

  174 “called his Fortress of Solitude”: Fortress of Solitude, Lester Dent (under the pen name Kenneth Robeson) (Street and Smith, 1938); reprinted in Doc Savage # 1 (Nostalgia Ventures, 2006).

  174 “his tie and jacket buttons hid . . . and his car could produce”: “The Bronze Genius,” Will Murray in The Man Behind Doc Savage: A Tribute to Lester Dent, edited by Robert Weinberg (Weinberg, 1974).

  174 “the comic-book superhero foursome”: “Introduction to The Fortress of Solitude” in Doc Savage # 1 (Nostalgia Ventures, 2006).

  174 “Doc’s gadgets were similarly ahead of his time”: “The Bronze Genius,” Will Murray in The Man Behind Doc Savage: A Tribute to Lester Dent, edited by Robert Weinberg (Weinberg, 1974).

  174 “According to Dent, a reference to radar”: Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Philip José Farmer (Doubleday, 1973).

  175 The Man of Bronze, Lester Dent (under the pen name Kenneth Robeson) (Street and Smith, 1933); reprinted in Doc Savage # 14 (Nostalgia Ventures, 2008).

  175 (footnote) “‘Ralph 124C 41+’”: The relevant paragraph, containing a detailed description of what we would today term “radar,” is reproduced in Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, James Gunn (Prentice-Hall, 1975).

  177 “What determines these transition rates”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974); QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Richard P. Feynman (Princeton University Press, 1988).

  CHAPTER 15

  183 “the demand for Buck Rogers- and Flash Gordon-inspired toy ray guns”: Raygun, Eugene W. Metcalf and Frank Maresca, photographed by Charles Bechtold (Fotofolio, 1999).

  183 “At his press conference in 1960, Maiman was peppered”: The Laser Odyssey, T. H. Maiman (Laser Press, 2000).

  183 “scientists from Bell Labs were instructed by management”: “Bell Labs and the Ruby Laser,” D. F. Nelson, R. J. Collins, W. Kaiser, Physics Today 63, 40 (2010).

  184 Goldfinger, written by Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn and directed by Guy Hamilton (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1964).

  184 “The circular buzz saw of the 1959 novel”: Goldfinger, Ian Fleming (Jonathan Cape, 1959).

  184 “How can one ensure that all the electrons residing in the laser levels”: Lasers and Holography: An Introduction to Coherent Optics, 2nd edition, Winston Kock (Dover, 1981).

  184 (footnote) “a mixture of two gases, helium and neon”: Quantum Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe, Barry Parker (Prometheus Books, 2002).

  185 (footnote) “the above argument applies to electric dipole transitions”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974); QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Richard P. Feynman (Princeton University Press, 1988).

  186 “The device produces light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”: Lasers and Holography: An Introduction to Coherent Optics, 2nd edition, Winston Kock (Dover, 1981).

  187 “sent out from a lab on Earth”: They All Laughed: From Light Bulbs to Lasers: The Fascinating Stories Behind the Great Inventions That Have Changed Our Lives, Ira Flatow (Harper Perennial, 1992).

  187 “Both of these elements . . . are thus chemically inert”: Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles, Robert Eisberg and Robert Resnick (John Wiley and Sons, 1974).

  188 “Digital video discs (DVDs) and compact discs (CDs)”: How Everything Works: Making Physics Out of the Ordinary, Louis A. Bloomfield (John Wiley and Sons, 2008).

  190 “Birth of the Death Ray,”: Dr. Solar—Man of the Atom # 16, written by Paul S. Newman and drawn by Frank Bolle (Gold Key Comics, June 1966), reprinted in Dr. Solar—Man of the Atom, vol. 2 (Dark Horse Books, 2005).

  191 “the number of Gillette razor blades they could melt through”: They All Laughed: From Light Bulbs to Lasers: The Fascinating Stories Behind the Great Inventions That Have Changed Our Lives, Ira Flatow (Harper Perennial, 1992).

  192 “Superman removes the thick cataracts that have blinded a companion”: “A Matter of Light and Death,” Action # 491, written by Cary Bates and drawn by Curt Swan (DC Comics, Jan. 1979).

  192 “Eight years later, Dr. Stephen Trokel”: Excimer Lasers in Ophthalmology , edited by David S. Gartry (Informa Healthcare, 1997).

  193 The South Pole Terror, Lester Dent (under the pen name Kenneth Robeson) (Street and Smith, 1936); reprinted in Doc Savage # 11 (Nostalgia Ventures, 2007).

  CHAPTER 16

  194 “robots would break free”: Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of Our Fantastic Future, Eric Dregni and Jonathan Dregni (Speck Press, 2006).

  194 “The Challengers were four adventurers”: Showcase # 6, written by Dave Wood and drawn by Jack Kirby (DC Comics, Jan.-Feb. 1957); reprinted in Challengers of the Unknown Archives, vol. 1 (DC Comics, 2003).

  195 “The Challengers’ challenge”: “ULTIVAC is Loose!,” Showcase # 7, written by Dave Wood and drawn by Jack Kirby (DC Comics, Mar.-Apr. 1957); reprinted in Challengers of the Unknown Archives, vol. 1 (DC Comics, 2003).

  197 “In 1946, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania”: Quantum Legacy: The Discovery That Changed Our Universe, Barry Parker (Prometheus Books, 2002).

  197 “a Bell Labs scientist, Russell Ohl”: Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age, Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson (W. W. Norton and Co., 1997).

  199 “Semiconductors make convenient light detectors”: Ibid.

  200 “smoke detector”: The Way Things Work, David Macaulay (Houghton Mifflin, 1988); How Everything Works: Making Physics Out of the Ordinary, Louis A. Bloomfield (John Wiley and Sons, 2008).

  201 “The Shadow, who in reality is Lamont Cranston, wealthy man-about-town”: The Shadow Scrapbook, Walter B. Gibson (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979).

  201 Death Stalks the Shadow, author unknown (original air date October 9, 1938, on the Mutual Network).

  202 “when different chemical impurities are added”: Introduction to Solid State Physics, 7th edition, Charles Kittel (John Wiley and Sons, 1995).

  205 “the junction between the p-type and n-type”: Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age, Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson (W. W. Norton and Co., 1997).

  205 “Solid-state semiconductor diodes”: Physics of Semiconductor Devices, 2nd edition, S. Sze (Wiley-Interscience, 1981); Electronics: Circuits and Devices, 2nd edition, Ralph J. Smith (John Wiley and Sons, 1980).

  206 two regions of an identical semiconductor are separated by a very thin insulator”: Ibid.

  206 “In 1939, Russell Ohl, a scientist at Bell Labs, was studying the electrical properties of semiconductors”: C
rystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age, Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson (W. W. Norton and Co., 1997).

  207 “a light-emitting diode (LED) is a pn junction”: Physics of Semiconductor Devices, 2nd edition, S. Sze (Wiley-Interscience, 1981); Electronics: Circuits and Devices, 2nd edition, Ralph J. Smith (John Wiley and Sons, 1980).

  208 “In the past thirty years the luminosity of these devices”: “From Transistors to Lasers to Light-Emitting Diodes,” Nick Holonyak Jr., MRS Bulletin, 30, 509 (2005); “The Quest for White LEDs Hits the Home Stretch,” Robert F. Service, Science 325, 809 (2009).

  CHAPTER 17

  211 “the invention of the transistor”: The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution, T. R. Reid (Random House, 2001).

  211 “the field-effect structure”: Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age, Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson (W. W. Norton and Co., 1997).

  214 “In 1958, just a year after the Challengers”: Ibid.

  215 “Estimates of the number of transistors”: Astronomy: The Solar System and Beyond, 2nd edition, Michael A. Seeds (Brooks/Cole, 2001); “One Billion Transistors, One Uniprocessor, One Chip,” Yale N. Patt, Sanjay Patel, Marius Evers, Daniel H. Friendly, and Jared Stark, IEEE Computer (September 1997).

  215 “the transport of a single electron can be detected”: “The Single Electron Transistor,” M. A. Kastner, Rev. Mod. Phys., 64, 849 (1992); “Artificial Atoms,” Marc A. Kastner, Physics Today (January 1993).

  215 “a complex literature using an alphabet consisting of only two letters”: The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution, T. R. Reid (Random House, 2001).

  217 “Flash memory devices add a second metal electrode”: “A Floating-Gate and Its Application to Memory Devices,” D. Kahng and S. M. Sze, The Bell System Technical Journal 46 (1967), p. 1288; “Introduction to Flash Memory,” R. Bez, E. Camerlenghi, A. Modelli, and A. Visconti, Proceedings of the IEEE 91 (2003), p. 489; “Reviews and Prospects of Non-Volatile Semiconductor Memories,” F. Masuoka, R. Shirota, and K. Sakui, IEICE Transactions E 74 (1991), p. 868.