Scan barcode
A review by zschultzhaus
The Science of Can and Can't: A Physicist’s Journey Through the Land of Counterfactuals by Chiara Marletto
4.0
After having read the bulk of this book twice, I both admire it and am disappointed by it.
As an introduction to what the author believes is a completely new and revolutionary field of thought, one that is fairly obscure, it is pretty illuminating. In essence, the argument is that there is a deeper and more complete understanding that we can have, right now, about the universe, and it comes by framing the discussion to be about what can and cannot occur in the universe, and how information and knowledge can be incorporated into physics.
Dr. Marletto does a fairly good job of providing just enough physics, at a low enough level, for most people to understand what impact her ideas might have. Reading it got me to appreciate information theory and view the universe in a different way. Not sure what I am going to do with this new perspective, but like the book says, one should always be growing, exploring, and creating. I would recommend it to anyone interested in a contemporary exploration of the rules governing the universe.
Going deeper into the book, I am less enthusiastic. The vignettes that the author provides to act as "refreshers" along the way fall pretty flat and add essentially nothing. Her understanding of biology, particularly what DNA can and cannot do, is lacking. Most people would not come out of this book understanding anything about quantum computing, or really any of the implications of what the author is saying, which was frustrating. Additionally, more and better examples are needed in general to illustrate her argument. A definition and exploration of information and knowledge are central to the book, but for the most part they are mentioned only at the level of they are reduced to bits or the most basic of transformations. I get that this is to reduce these concepts to the level that physicists are comfortable with, but not going beyond these examples is extremely unsatisfying. Finally, I am straight up unconvinced by other arguments - there is a misreading of Shakespeare in the first chapter, and the idea that short lived messages such as words written in foam are not information media, but something that lasts longer, say a post-it note that breaks down in a week, is, seems arbitrary to me. I have a few other issues but will not bring them all up here.
Overall, though, it has given me a lot to think about, and I am glad that I read it. I look forward to understanding the physics more deeply and seeing what the author comes out with in the future.
As an introduction to what the author believes is a completely new and revolutionary field of thought, one that is fairly obscure, it is pretty illuminating. In essence, the argument is that there is a deeper and more complete understanding that we can have, right now, about the universe, and it comes by framing the discussion to be about what can and cannot occur in the universe, and how information and knowledge can be incorporated into physics.
Dr. Marletto does a fairly good job of providing just enough physics, at a low enough level, for most people to understand what impact her ideas might have. Reading it got me to appreciate information theory and view the universe in a different way. Not sure what I am going to do with this new perspective, but like the book says, one should always be growing, exploring, and creating. I would recommend it to anyone interested in a contemporary exploration of the rules governing the universe.
Going deeper into the book, I am less enthusiastic. The vignettes that the author provides to act as "refreshers" along the way fall pretty flat and add essentially nothing. Her understanding of biology, particularly what DNA can and cannot do, is lacking. Most people would not come out of this book understanding anything about quantum computing, or really any of the implications of what the author is saying, which was frustrating. Additionally, more and better examples are needed in general to illustrate her argument. A definition and exploration of information and knowledge are central to the book, but for the most part they are mentioned only at the level of they are reduced to bits or the most basic of transformations. I get that this is to reduce these concepts to the level that physicists are comfortable with, but not going beyond these examples is extremely unsatisfying. Finally, I am straight up unconvinced by other arguments - there is a misreading of Shakespeare in the first chapter, and the idea that short lived messages such as words written in foam are not information media, but something that lasts longer, say a post-it note that breaks down in a week, is, seems arbitrary to me. I have a few other issues but will not bring them all up here.
Overall, though, it has given me a lot to think about, and I am glad that I read it. I look forward to understanding the physics more deeply and seeing what the author comes out with in the future.