Overview

""Can you kick a black hole?"" ""What about electrons?"" As a child, quantum-physicist Smitha Vishveshwara pondered such questions with her astrophysicist father, C. V. Vishveshwara (Vishu); decades later, their musings grew into a series of letter exchanges in Two Revolutions: Relativity and Quantum Physics. The letters between father and daughter lead the scientifically curious reader through these two remarkable branches of physics that dramatically changed our perception of nature. From the subatomic to the astronomical realms, they weave a rich tapestry of scientific insight, history, personal anecdotes, philosophy, and wonder. The book traces Einstein's tenacious journey in formulating the theory of relativity, in which space and time merge, and gravitation warps spacetime, forming the very fabric of the Universe. The authors reveal how black holes and gravitational waves emerge as bizarre and awe-inspiring constructs within this framework. In the quantum realm, the book mulls over conundrums posed by wave-particle duality, Schrodinger's curious cat, the beautiful dance of electrons in atoms, and entanglement. It explores communities of particles acting in marvelous concert in magnetic resonance imaging, superfluids, and more. Fate took unforeseen twists while the book was still in the making. In 2016, after decades of work by numerous researchers, the detection of gravitational waves — Vishu's lifelong dream — finally came to pass. Emanating from two spiraling blackholes a billion light years away, the waves' signals even showed hints of Vishu's pioneering predictions on black hole ringdowns from the 1970s. But soon after that glorious culmination, Vishu fell critically ill. Smitha concludes their story by recreating the euphoria of scientific discovery against the intimate backdrop of life and death.

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9780198758334

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Reviews

This is an engaging and thought-provoking exchange of letters between two insightful physicists, a father and daughter, explaining clearly the principles of both general relativity (including black holes and the detection of gravitational radiation) and quantum theory (including the difference between bosons and fermions, entanglement, a Bose-Einstein condensate, and magnetic resonance imaging). It is delightfully illustrated and does not shy away from presenting relevant key equations. The father-daughter relationship at the centre of the book gives it a unique quality that makes it a great read. * George Ellis, University of Cape Town * In this book,which is written in an unusual format as an exchange of letters with her late father,a distinguished general relativist, Dr. Vishveshwara presents introductions to each of the two major revolutions of her title at a level which should be accessible to readers with little or no previous exposure to either. Using simple examples or parallels from everyday life, the duo skillfully elucidates the conceptual novelty inherent in each of these two paradigm shifts, which have fundamentally changed not just the answers given by physicists about the world around us,but the very questions which they pose about it. * Sir Anthony Leggett, Nobel Laureate (2003) * It was pure pleasure to read about the two revolutions of Relativity and Quantum Physics, from the excitement of discovery in the 20th century to the promises for the same in the 21st! Showcasing unknown heroines of science, the book will endear itself to anybody who dreams of more equity and inclusion in science. It carves out a special place among other such expositions with its conversational narrative between a relativist father and quantum physicist daughter... Their love for the subject, and affection and respect for each other, shine through. * Rohini Godbole, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore *

Author Information

Smitha Vishveshwara is a Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research in quantum condensed matter physics includes studying emergent phenomena in correlated systems, such as collective excitations and particles known as anyons; percolation behavior in protein networks; gravitational parallels in quantum matter; and realization of ultracold quantum bubbles aboard the International Space Station. She recently served as the American Physical Society's Chair of the Division of Condensed Matter Physics. She collaborates with artists to create works that explore the wonders of physics, including the theatre piece Quantum Voyages and the circus performance Cosmic Tumbles, Quantum Leaps. C.V. Vishveshwara was a Senior Professor of Astrophysics at the Raman Research Institute and the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru, India. As a pioneer of black hole studies, he proved their stability and predicted their ringdown signature in gravitational waves. He wrote several popular articles and two popular books, including Einstein's Enigma or Black Holes in my Bubble Bath, and richly illustrated his presentations with his cartoons. As the founder-director of the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in Bengaluru, he established youth educational programs and wrote and directed several planetarium shows.

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