Quantum Physics for Hippies
By Dr. Lukas Neumeier & Dr. James Douglas
A book review by Allison Constantino
ISBN –9781091891166
Published April 2019
Are you a truth-seeker? Are you always looking at things and wondering, “Why?” then this book is for you!
Dr. Neumeier and Dr. Douglas have created a fun dialogue between Alice, the scientist nerd and Bob, the spiritual hippie that attempts to explain the possibly unexplainable – the strange theory that describes the behavior of atoms and light – quantum physics.
“The common denominator …. each hippie and each nerd – is simply looking for the truth.” “The truth about who we are and how we fit into the universe. This search unites us all, regardless of social conventions.”
I’m an artist, not a mathematician or scientist. However, being an artist means that I’m always amazed and puzzled at what I see and that means everything I see around me. I want to know “why” things are like they are! I demand answers!
That’s why quantum physics has always intrigued me. In this book, I love the clever dialogue between Bob and Alice and their attempts to present simple answers to complex questions – and according to Occam’s Razor Theory, “The simpler the theory is, the more likely it is to be true.”
I love trees so I was pleasantly surprised to learn from Bob and Alice, “The atoms in our bodies are exactly the same as those in any tree, plant, animal, rock or star – and for some reason – those atoms organize themselves into a human.”
So, we’re all atoms, some of us are tree atoms and some of us are human atoms!
More mind-blowing information Bob and Alice share with us in their idle banter:
- In each single electron is the whole pattern.
- Information can’t be created or destroyed – just passed on.
I’ve always loved films about parallel universes and how they manifest, so I was totally intrigued by this thought, “It’s the parallel existence of infinite beings having all possible experiences at the same time. You’re never reborn – you’ve always existed.”
I didn’t quite grasp that, so fortunately Bob provided this insight. “There is just one everlasting unbreakable quantum wave. Inside that wave there are multiple Bobs occupying multiple universes, having different experiences, leading different lives, but the different universes can’t communicate with each other. So, each Bob thinks he is living in the only universe and each Bob is convinced he is the only Bob.”
I was really intrigued to discover “connected possibilities,” or “entanglement” that two possibilities exist simultaneously. Schrodinger’s Equation shows how a cat can be dead and alive – simultaneously.
More insights shared by Bob and Alice include “There are many of you. You are a multi-dimensional being living in many universes at once.”
“Conscious experience in a body which is dead or in a deep sleep – stops. But, globally, conscious experience goes on and if you are really consciousness itself, and there is only one consciousness as you say, your next possible experience must be an experience. You can’t experience not experiencing. You would experience the process of dying, but then you would instantly have another experience. Maybe you’d find yourself looking through another configuration of atoms. A new body. But that new body only remembers being that body, because it comes with its own memory, and for you, it feels like you have always been with that body.
“So, consciousness would experience dying, but would never remember it.”
Bob and Alice offered some parting take-away thoughts, “The Holy Grail is to see yourself as nothing and everything at the same time. Then you feel unshakable stability, complete freedom of any experience. While at the same time, feeling love and compassion for whatever appears inside of consciousness.”
An ending and beginning insight from Bob, “I believe that gaining full awareness of the mind is the next step to human evolution.”
Where will our minds take us tomorrow?
Dr. Lukas Neumeier currently works at the Darrick Chang Group, ICFO Institute of Photonic Sciences, with a focus on atomic, molecular and optical physics, condensed matter physics and quantum physics. The group’s most recent research publication is “Reaching the optomechanical strong coupling regime with a single atom in a cavity.”
Dr. James Douglas is a physicist with a research focus on ultracold quantum gases.
Jun Matsuura is an artist specializing in pencil drawings.
Count Down by Matt Phillips
ISBN # -13: 978-1-948-235-84-6
If you like crime-fiction, this one’s for you! A deep dive into the “legal” marijuana business where cash is more readily available than an ATM and two gutsy war vets are determined to get a piece-of-the-pie!
“With the legalization of marijuana in California and the federal illegality of the drug, there’s a teeny weeny money problem. You can grow weed. You can sell it. You can smoke it and you can eat it. You can do just about whatever you want with it. You can’t put it in a bank because the IRS will start asking important questions. So, what do you do with it?”
Ten thousand a day. Every day. In cash! You can MAKE it, but where can you PUT it?
Set in San Diego, this book reads like a really low-life “American Greed!” Two war vets back from Iraq (a.k.a. EYE-RACK) are looking for their next gig. One-half of the dynamic duo starts his own marijuana “security” company! He’s got the guts and the firepower!
All these marijuana “dispensaries” need a place to store their cash while it’s being “laundered.” That takes time and in the mean time, the cash, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of cash – just sits there for the taking! Somebody has to pick up the cash every day and “store” it!
“Storing” thousands of dollars every day in duffel bags in a storage unit is a recipe for disaster! With those kind of high stakes, everybody is looking for an angle to get rid of their competition. This is a dog-eat-dog world! Every guy is in it for himself!
So, who better to rob the dispensaries than the guy(s) set up to “secure” them. Enter the other half of the duo. Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned and these two hard-luck soldiers lead you down every seedy back street and dive in San Diego.
Our war vets for one reason or another, one-by-one end up with the short end of the stick! So much for the best-laid plans. Guts will only get you so far, and in this case, our heroes are picked off one-by-one.
Three Hours Past Midnight by Tony Knighton
Reviewed by Allison Constantino for Crime Wave Press
Published by Crime Wave Press December 2017
ISBN -10 9881493854
ISBN-13 978-9881493859
If you enjoy a 50’s style, no-nonsense crime read, you’ll enjoy this fast-ride connecting-the-dots in Three Hours Past Midnight.
You’re in for the ride of your life, as you go from one low-life place in the seedy under-belly of Philadelphia, to the next, with a veteran violent thief as he tries to track down his money lost in a job with his partner, a retired cop, who ends up dead!
This book gives new meaning to the phrase, “all-in-a-days-work,” as our thief looks all over Philly trying to find his loot and meets up with every unsavory character imaginable, including corrupt politicians, every low-life thug in the neighborhood and even illegal immigrants.
I ended up knowing a lot more than I wanted to know about how to be a good thief, honor amongst thieves, and how crime really does pay!
I loved the author’s quotes:
“His eyes told the truth. They were dark, and hard, and they never stopped moving. He looked at my face, my hands, around me, through me, frisking me with those eyes and coming back to me again. Raco would make a point of remembering everything.”
“What do I always say? If you want someone to believe your story, they have to tell it to themselves.”
“…He was right. This business was all a matter of attitude.”
From a reader’s perspective, I knew nothing about Philadelphia and even less about the every-day life of a veteran, violent thief, so it was an education for me on all levels. At every turn there seems to be a judge or politician on-the-take, a cop that “went bad” and a job that went south.
It’s a tough way to make a living, but that’s the way things are when you’ve chosen to be a career thief.
Taking the life of another person is just the cost of doing business, nothing more, nothing less. You do what you need to do to get what you need to get!
Tony Knighton is a 30-year Philadelphia Fire Department veteran and has lived in Philly since his early childhood. He definitely has his fingers on the pulse of Philly and passes that knowledge on to his readers.
Tony also played music semi-professionally for years and I personally enjoyed the way Tony weaved his love and knowledge of music into the plot seamlessly!
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