How The Hippies Saved Physics

In the 1970s, an eccentric group of physicists in Berkeley, California, banded together to explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the Fundamental Fysiks Group, they pursued an audacious, speculative approach to physics, studying quantum entanglement in terms of Eastern mysticism and psychic mind reading.

As David Kaiser reveals, these unlikely heroes spun modern physics in a new direction, forcing mainstream physicists to pay attention to the strange but exciting underpinnings of quantum theory. Review: It's rare to find quantum physics mentioned in the same breath with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll...

I heartily enjoyed How the Hippies Saved Physics. It is hard to write a book about quantum mechanics that is at once intellectually serious and a page-turner. But David Kaiser succeeds... Illuminating. [Kaiser] does an admirable job of making the very concepts of quantum mechanics palpable. An entertaining tale.