REVIEW: of Escape from Shadow Physics By Adam Forrest Kay (Reviewed by Stephen Case, July 20, 2025, Washington Independent Review of Books)
The “best summary of quantum physics,” writes Kay, “[is these] five words: ‘Don’t look: wave. Look: particle.’” The phrase refers to the cryptic double-slit experiment used to determine whether electrons are waves or particles. The shocker? When humans are not observing, this experiment reveals electrons to be waves. But when they are observing? Electrons are particles. (For a clever and convincing demo, see Jim Al-Khalili’s video on YouTube.)
Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynmann said the two-slit experiment is “impossible…to explain in any classical way,” yet many physicists couldn’t care less about such quantum puzzles. When newbie students ask skeptical questions, in fact, some professors in the field allegedly bark, “Shut up and calculate!” Their reasoning? “[W]e cannot do better than the probabilities…even in theory,” Kay says. “The…hidden variables that would [explain what is happening] do not even exist.”