Decent conceptual overview of modern physics. The author gets a bit to into any presumed similarities with any eastern philosophies but sometimes it's hard not to. I would definitely recommend this as a book for a layman.

Is it up-to-date on quantum mechanics? No. Is it entirely accurate? No.
Does it approach the subject matter in a way that was popular in the 1970's new age circles? Yes, (not surprisingly given its genesis in Esalen's communal dining hall.)

But it is also a fun, engaging introduction to physics and quantum mechanics that is accurate in many broad strokes, and Zukav's style shows his excitement about the subject and the parallels he drew to eastern philosophy.

I'm re-reading it for the first time in twenty or so years, and forgot what a fun ride through the history of physics and quantum theory that Zukav had charted.

Forrest Yoga Certification homework.

Totally intense. Like quantum physics, newtonian physics? Want to explore more? This is for you.

I was writing notes every 2 minutes if not every 30 seconds.

Wu Li--has many different translations but the one discussed in this book --> patterns of organic energy

As an engaging introduction to an enthralling science, for people who've never studied physics, this book is fantastic. I appreciated the historical approach to the topic, learning one piece of the puzzle at a time in the order of those who made the discoveries; I feel like this really helped my understanding. I'm someone who has held a fear of math and physics for years, but Zukav writes in a clear and thorough fashion, stopping himself every once a while to ensure that the reader is with him. The average layperson could learn the basics of complicated physics from this book, easily.

Only when Zukav makes large leaps into philosophy, full of holes and assumptions and "logical" ruling-out of other possible explanations (despite a whole chapter praising Einstein for approaching physics with a beginner's mind not bothered with traditional conclusions of what is and is not possible), does he stumble. I knew going into it that he wrote this book with a particular readership in mind but to my surprise, I felt like I actually could have used MORE math, MORE in-depth explanation, and less sweeping extrapolation; this is no fault of the author's though, and I will have to credit him with encouraging me to study physics in greater depth.

In summary: a superb, well-written introduction to new physics, whose only flaw (to my tastes at least) is a penchant for applying the knowledge to big-picture philosophical levels-- which isn't really something that anyone as clearly fascinated by the discovery of these new physics as Zukav is can be faulted for :)

When I read this for the honors program at my university, I was so fearful...I just knew that I would struggle with quantum physics no matter how well it was written....but to my surprize, I enjoyed and clearly understood this exploration of quantum physics with no problems...I was delighted and found myself reading it outloud to my hsuband who also enjoyed it...but he is the science guy..so that is not surprizing...but for me it was a refreshing surprize...

It had been a while since I picked up a book and got through it all, but this was a great one to get me back on the boat! The connection between ancient Eastern religions (Buddhism and Hinduism) and the psychological conclusions one draws from quantum physics experiments is really interesting, and one that Zukav does a great job of laying out to anyone but especially to me because I was familiar with a lot of the quantum theories discussed in the book. When you shrink the universe down to its smallest building block, one that humans haven't even seen or know what it is, we HAVE to be content with the idea that our brains do not have the experience nor the vocabulary to describe the phenomena that we are a part of on Earth. Observations made using the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen experiment, where electrons or other particle/waves (you could write a whole review just on that topic) are instantaneously affected by something that is happening in a completely other place is incomprehensible with Newtonian physics and our common understanding of the way the universe works. This means that either everything in our universe is scripted, and that there is no true free will when we zoom our perspective out, or that our universes split every time a decision gets made by us, or another living thing on this planet. It truly is mind-blowing conceptually.

When you connect that to Buddhist or Hindu ideas that the mind in our current lives cannot understand the present, we are left with having to be okay with reality not being comprehensible in our own minds. Accepting that reality, meaning everything you can think about, does not include everything that exists in our universe (down to the smallest energy molecules) detaches me at least from understanding what I'm doing here.

What I love the most about books about quantum physics, I think this is my fourth or fifth in the last year, is that they truly are an amazing combination of science and psychology. This book makes you think, but not in the way that makes it a slow book but one that makes you want to get through everything faster to figure out where it's going. Highly recommend!

Popular history of the evolution in theoretical physics, connected with Eastern wisdom. Very long run-up with sometimes unnecessary elaborations, too dense at the end. The references to Eastern wisdom seemed rather cheap to me. Nevertheless, I remember I really enjoyed reading this. (2.5 stars)

Fantastic, amazing book. To radically oversimplify, physics says that all my New Agey crap is true. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but for real it's about how closely thinking in physics correlates with Eastern philosophy. The science was well-explained enough that I could easily follow it to its conclusion; it won't stick in my head, but that's mostly because I'm not sufficiently science-brained. The implications of the science will definitely stay with me, however. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in physics, Eastern mysticism, or both.

Though published in 1979, and written by a fairly intelligent non-physicist, I'm assuming it is still a good layman's introduction to the tectonic shift in physics that the 20th century witnessed through the great minds of Plank, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg. I'm not qualified to weigh in on whether such a book remains a good introduction to the then 'new physics' in 2016, but I can certainly say I enjoyed it and appreciate the care taken to explain the headiness of the theories of special and general relativity, quantum uncertainty, and Bell's theorem.

Having said that, Zukav could have done away with the unnecessary parentheticals every time he (un)intentionally puns (please!), or makes use of his initially dimwitted debate partner 'Jim de Wit', who inexplicably becomes better versed in the new physics throughout the book. And at some points the repetition in his explanations could have benefited from a simple mutatis mutandis.

If the reader had wished for a better balance with the assumed thesis (though explicitly denied by Zukav early on), that the new physics just is what Buddhists and Taoists have known all along, you will be disappointed. Though he does occasionally drop such 'truths' that there really is a link between the 'Eastern religions' and the increasingly mystifying discoveries and theorizations within the new physics, he does not offer enough textual support from the Eastern religions to maintain such a thesis - which, again, despite the odd reference to koans here and there, is not Zukav's aim in this book.

So, take it with a grain of salt - written by a mostly spiritual author, inspired on a trip to the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California (Google it - you'll get the picture), The Dancing Wu Li Masters is itself a trip in sobered-up post-hippism that finds the "far out, man" in the truly far out, and far in, of quantum mechanics and particle physics.

In two words: Hippy Physics. Zukav published this manuscript in the 1970s and it really shows. Quantum theory was just coming into it's own and American exploration with mysticism and the philosophies of the East may have seemed like a perfect pair at the time. Some aspects of the comparison are compellingly coincidental I'd say, and there are times where Zukav tries to hard. In particular, I think the Taoist, and to a lesser extent, the Buddhist comparisons are the richest.

But this is by no means the focus of the book. Religion seems to play an anecdotal role in this general outline of the state of physics in the 1970s. Zukav does an admirable job visualizing things that defy visualization and does a very good job at explaining complex physical experiments and quantum behavior with rich historical references scattered throughout. An overarching theme of the book is how reality defies symbolic expression, especially at the higher levels of physics to which we seem to be progressing. It seemed in the 70s that we'd eventually hit a wall where language fails us. On the surface, this seems true as most of the modern work in physics seems to have abandoned the conventions of English and elevated to the realm of pure mathematics. But there are a host of modern popular physics authors who have defied this convention quite nicely, most notably Brian Greene and Michio Kaku.

A good book for students of physics and of logic in general, when taken with the proper dose of historical context.