Something Deeply Hidden

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. He received his PhD in 1993 from Harvard University. Recently, Carroll has worked on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, and the emergence of complexity. His other books include From Eternity to Here: the Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time, The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World, and The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, as well as the textbook Spacetime and Geometry: An Introduction to General Relativity.

Carroll has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Sloan Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of London, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Carroll has appeared on The Colbert Report, PBS’s NOVA, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, and he frequently serves as a science consultant for film and television. He has been interviewed by various NPR shows, Scientific American, Wired, and The New York Times. He has given a TED talk on the multiverse that has more than one million views, and he has participated in a number of well-attended public debates concerning material in his new book. He is the host of the popular weekly podcast Mindscape.

"A thrilling tour through what is perhaps humankind's greatest intellectual achievement--quantum mechanics. With bold clarity, Carroll deftly unmasks quantum weirdness to reveal a strange but utterly wondrous reality."

—Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics, director of the Columbia Center for Theoretical Physics, author of The Elegant Universe

“Sean Carroll’s immensely enjoyable Something Deeply Hidden brings readers face to face with the fundamental quantum weirdness of the universe — or should I say universes?  And by the end, you may catch yourself finding quantum weirdness not all that weird."

—Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of How Not To Be Wrong

“Sean Carroll is always lucid and funny, gratifyingly readable, while still excavating depths. He advocates an acceptance of quantum mechanics at its most minimal, its most austere – appealing to the allure of the pristine. The consequence is an annihilation of our conventional notions of reality in favor of an utterly surreal world of Many Worlds. Sean includes us in the battle between a simple reality versus a multitude of realities that feels barely on the periphery of human comprehension. He includes us in the ideas, the philosophy, and the foment of revolution. A fascinating and important book.”

—Janna Levin, professor of physics & astronomy, Barnard College of Columbia University, author of Black Hole Blues

“Sean Carroll beautifully clarifies the debate about the foundations of quantum mechanics, and champions the most elegant, courageous approach: the astonishing “many worlds” interpretation. His explanations of its pros and cons are clear, evenhanded, and philosophically gob smacking.”

—Steven Strogatz, professor of mathematics, Cornell University, and author of Infinite Powers

“Carroll gives us a front-row seat to the development of a new vision of physics: one that connects our everyday experiences to a dizzying hall-of-mirrors universe in which our very sense of self is challenged. It's a fascinating idea, and one that just might hold clues to a deeper reality.”

—Katie Mack, theoretical astrophysicist, North Carolina State University, author of The End of Everything (forthcoming)

“I was overwhelmed by tears of joy at seeing so many fundamental issues explained as well as they ever have been.  Something Deeply Hidden is a masterpiece, which stands along with Feynman's QED as one of the two best popularizations of quantum mechanics I've ever seen.  And if we classify QED as having had different goals, then it's just the best popularization of quantum mechanics I've ever seen, full stop.”

—Scott Aaronson, professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, and Director of UT’s Quantum Information Center

“Irresistible and an absolute treat to read. While this is a book about some of the deepest current mysteries in physics, it is also a book about metaphysics as Carroll lucidly guides us on how to not only think about the true and hidden nature of reality but also how to make sense of it.  I loved this book.”

—Priyamvada Natarajan, theoretical astrophysicist, Yale University, author of Mapping the Heavens

Prologue: Don’t Be Afraid

Part One

Spooky

1. What’s Going On: Looking at the Quantum World

2. The Courageous Formulation: Austere Quantum Mechanics

3. Why Would Anybody Think This? How Quantum Mechanics Came to Be

4. What Cannot Be Known, Because It Does Not Exist: Uncertainty and Complementarity

5. Entangled Up in Blue: Wave Functions of Many Parts

Part Two

Splitting

6. Splitting the Universe: Decoherence and Parallel Worlds

7. Order and Randomness: Where Probability Comes From

8. Does This Ontological Commitment Make Me Look Fat? A Socratic Dialogue on Quantum Puzzles

9. Other Ways: Alternatives to Many-Worlds

10. The Human Side: Living and Thinking in a Quantum Universe

Part Three

Spacetime

11. Why Is There Space? Emergence and Locality

12. A World of Vibrations: Quantum Field Theory

13. Breathing in Empty Space: Finding Gravity within Quantum Mechanics

14. Beyond Space and Time: Holography, Black Holes, and the Limits of Locality

Epilogue: Everything Is Quantum

Appendix: The Story of Virtual Particles

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

References

Index

For publicity inquiries please contact Emily Canders at Dutton (ecanders@prh.com; 212/366-2264).

For speaking events email SeanCarrollTeam@unitedtalent.com.