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  • Something Deeply Hidden

  • Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
  • Written by: Sean Carroll
  • Narrated by: Sean Carroll
  • Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (148 ratings)

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Something Deeply Hidden

Written by: Sean Carroll
Narrated by: Sean Carroll
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Publisher's Summary

Instant New York Times best seller

As you listen to these words, copies of you are being created. Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.

Quantum mechanics has always had obvious gaps—which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable audiobook, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us.

Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many Worlds Theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world, the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established.

Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding—of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of.

©2019 Sean Carroll (P)2019 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

"What makes Carroll's new project so worthwhile, though, is that while he is most certainly choosing sides in the debate, he offers us a cogent, clear and compelling guide to the subject while letting his passion for the scientific questions shine through every page." (NPR)

“The book presents one fascinating concept after another, and I think it is an essential read. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the implications of the Many Worlds and entanglement, and the fact that our reality is always an infinite set of connected possibilities. It’s really blown my mind. The deeper you dive into quantum mechanics, the more it challenges you to keep an open mind about everything.”Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal in Fast Company 

"Something Deeply Hidden is Carroll’s ambitious and engaging foray into what quantum mechanics really means and what it tells us about physical reality." (Science Magazine)

What listeners say about Something Deeply Hidden

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

In another world, this review is much better.

Quantum Physics felt very woo woo up until somewhat recently. I started paying a bit more attention to quantum physics when I saw in the news that hardware engineers & scientists are no longer able to make computer chips smaller because of something called quantum entanglement.

Quantum entanglement is one of the rare observable phenomenon that impacts business & technology that we use daily, it’s where electrons just spontaneously move around.

Then you hear about google’s quantum computing breakthroughs...so it’s fashionable to read books like this to keep up with everything Quantum.

This book is not about quantum computing, it’s more about the philosophy & science behind the paradigm shift that is going from thinking in classical physics to thinking in quantum physics.

Before this, it was a lot of “law of attraction” and “vibrate the same energy as what you want” - some of that which I believed, but it felt embarrassing to talk about.

Now with books like Something Deeply Hidden, you can learn about quantum physics as a regular person and not have to bring the law of attraction into it!

The criticism I will give the book is that it’s very dense...it gets extremely boring in the middle and the last part.

The book should have only been half the length, and according to what I’ve learned in the book, in another universe it was only half the length!

I would say this is very dense material, you’re going to be re-reading sentences a lot.

The first bit of the book is really good, then in the middle there’s a chapter which is a mock conversation between a daughter and her father...the daughter is a quantum physicist and the father is a classical physicist. It’s a really good chapter.

I don’t think this book is for everyone, unless you are REALLY interested in quantum physics. In fact I think you can just listen to the author Sean Carrol on the Joe Rogan Podcast and get the info that way.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Not as Entertaining and Too Technical

This is not for the layman who wants to learn more about Quantum Physics. It is very technical.

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High expectations fully met.

I have been eagerly waiting the release of this book. I can not imagine a clearer presentation of the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

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Beautifully written and performed

a very thorough treatment of issues in quantum mechanics and entertaining to boot! I look forward to Sean Carroll's future writing.

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Clearly clear

Sean Carole speaks clearly and, though the topic reqires deep reflection, makes things as easy to understand as they could be.

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Everettian Many Worlds Bias

The book is an editorial, leaning heavily on philosophy rather than experimental data and mathematics, and although I agree that Copenhagen rigidity is unproductive, I stopped listening at the point where he began waxing philosophical on consciousness.

This is more of a logic based love letter to Many Worlds Interpretation than anything more substantive.

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An Approachable and Fascinating Book

I am not a scientist but I have been interested in theoretical physics for years. Sean Carroll’s book strikes an excellent balance - it is intellectually challenging but not out of reach. I thoroughly enjoyed it and, best of all, I learned quite a few things.

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