{"id":759,"date":"2016-01-26T13:53:32","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T13:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chimneyrabbit.com\/?p=759"},"modified":"2016-01-26T13:54:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T13:54:36","slug":"review-the-many-worlds-of-albie-bright-by-christopher-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Many Worlds of Albie Bright by Christopher Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright<\/a>, by Christopher Edge, is a quantum fairy-tale.<\/p>\n

Albie – short for Albert, named after Albert Einstein – is the son of two scientists: his Dad has a popular science TV show, and his Mum worked down a mine, safe from the interfering effects of cosmic rays, probing the universe for signs of the elusive dark matter.<\/p>\n

But as the book begins, Albie’s Mum has died of cancer. He’ll never see her again. Or will he?<\/p>\n

You see, the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (which Albie, being the son of two scientists, has of course heard of) says that there is a possibly infinite number of universes, each one slightly different, in which anything that can possibly happen, happens. Even if it didn’t happen in\u00a0our<\/em> universe.<\/p>\n

So it stands to reason that somewhere, out there in the multiverse, Albie’s Mum is still alive…<\/p>\n

The scientific background (quantum theory, Schroedinger’s cat, the Large Hadron Collider, quantum computing) is nicely developed, and while it sometimes feels a\u00a0little<\/em> bit like an info-dump, it’s never dull, and always relevant. Of course, when Albie’s experiments lead him to Quantum Banana Theory and quantum-entangled ammonites, it takes a turn for the decidedly unscientific and fantastical, which is a bit of a jolt after the accuracy\u00a0of the background detail, but without Quantum Banana Theory (which would have been a great alternative title!) we wouldn’t have much of a book, so I think we’ll forgive Mr Edge for a bit of dramatic scientific licence!<\/p>\n

Of course, with Albie’s loss at the heart of the book, it’s as much a book about family and grief as it is about science and adventure; but the tone never gets too heavy, and there are enough lighter moments to keep the atmosphere from getting depressing.<\/p>\n

As you’d expect from Nosy Crow, it’s a nicely produced book (with really shiny letters on the cover and<\/em> the spine!) with a striking cover\u00a0by Matt Saunders and interior illustration by both Saunders and Spike Gerrell.<\/p>\n

And the list of books in the acknowledgements is a great starting point if a reader should\u00a0become inspired to develop their own Quantum Banana Theory. But most useful of all is the quote from the great physicist Richard Feynman:<\/p>\n

“If you think you understand quantum physics, you don’t understand quantum physics.”<\/p>\n

That may be true, but it makes for a great book anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, by Christopher Edge, is a quantum fairy-tale. Albie – short for Albert, named after Albert Einstein – is the son of two scientists: his Dad has a popular science TV show, and his Mum worked down a mine, safe from the interfering effects of cosmic rays, probing the universe… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Review: The Many Worlds of Albie Bright by @edgechristopher from @NosyCrow","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/The-Many-Worlds-of-Albie-Bright.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p37h7H-cf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":761,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}