God Plays Dice with the World

Professor of Theoretical Physics (SISSA), Scientific Director of the Journal of Statistical Mechanics and Applications and author of several scientific monographs on quantum field theory, including "Statistical Field Theory", Oxford University Press 2020. He has written various popular science books, including: "Dio gioca a dadi con il mondoLa storia della meccanica quantistica" (Castelvecchi 2025); "Maksimovic: The Story of Bruno Pontecorvo" (Castelvecchi 2023); "The ABC’s of Science" (Springer 2022), "Sky and Earth. Travelling with Dante Alighieri and Marco Polo" (Springer 2023). He is Academician of the oldest Italian academy, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (Firenze). Author of 5 scientific documentaries, including "Galois: A Revolutionary Mathematician" (2017). Among his recognitions are the Italian Physical Society Outreach Award (2013), the Kramers Chair at Utrecht University (2017), and the Cosmos Award (2024).

• Preface.- 1. The colour mystery (Am Kupfergraben 7, Berlin; Something Absolute).- 2. The Century of Wonders (The Age of Romanticism;Calculating the World;The Mechanics of the Universe; Fiat Lux; The Secret Life of Force Lines; Heat in Motion; Kinetic Theory; Entropy and Probability).- 3. The Blackbody (Good Masters, Poor Lecturers; The Origin of the Problem; A Blackbody That Isn’t Really Black; Exact and Approximate Laws; The Fatal Attraction of Entropy; Planck's Version)- 4. Ordinary Geniuses and Wizards (Birds and Frogs; Portrait of a Scientist as a Young Man;Third-Class Patent Office Clerk; Quanta of Light; Perpetual Motion; Crystal Heat).- 5. The Experimental Side of Physics (The Importance of the Vacuum; Joseph John Thomson; Seeing the Invisible; Alpha Beta Gamma;The Crocodile from New Zealand; Spectral Lines).- 6. Natura Facit Saltum (Two Brothers; From Copenhagen to Manchester, via Cambridge; The Risks of a Theorist; Back to Denmark; The Colors of a Butterfly’s Wings; Mocking Logic; Quantum Jumps).- 7. The Music of the Spheres (The Spider's Skill; Experimental Discoveries; It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times; New Quantum Numbers; Probability and Perplexity; The Impulse of a Photon).- 8. The Little Prince (Noblesse Oblige; The Lab in Rue Chateaubriand; Wave Mechanics; The Music of Atoms; Matter Waves; The Pilot Wave).- 9. God’s Punishment (Bohr's Festival; The Periodic Table; Celtium? No, Hafnium; The Pauli Effect; Light and Shadows; Born and Bohr; Brilliant Insights; The Intricate Story of the Spin; A Trunk Full of People; The Analyst and the Stubborn Rationalist).- 10. The Birth of a New Mechanics (Top of the Class; Pride and Prejudice; The Sorrows of Young Werner; The Rage of the Defeated; Calm Chaos; The Noblest of Gases; Bohr's Blunder; Helgoland; Matrix).- 11. The Passion for Waves (A Christmas Gift; A World Full of Women; The Stage of Vienna; Inseparable; A Wave in Search of an Equation; Atomic Undulations;Two Different Worldviews; Probability Waves;The Spirit of Copenhagen).- 12. Beauty is Truth, Truth is Beauty (A Quiet Child; St. John College; A Seminar at the Kapitza Club; The Greatest Satisfaction in Life; In Search of an Equation; Dirac’s Sea).- 13. The Race Toward Absolute Zero (The Coldest Place on Earth; Offer No Resistance; A Letter from India; Loss of Identity; Black Holes and Atomic Condensates).- 14. Dialogue concerning the two Chief World Systems (A River of Words;The Uncertainty Principle; Complementarity Principle; The 1927 Solvay Conference; Redde Rationem; The Quintessence of Quantum Strangeness; A Fatal Blow).- 15. Quantum Field Theory (A Fascinating Union; Classical and Quantum Fields; The Origin of Particles; Neutrino, Neutron, and Positron; Matters of Principle; The Enigma of Infinities; Shelter Island; QED, the Jewel of Physics; Weyl's Insight).- 16. The Drama of War (The Weaving of History; The Sky Over Berlin; The Red Fish Fountain; At the Heart of the Nucleus; The White Jew; J. Robert Oppenheimer, Portrait of an Enigma).- 17. The Speakable and the Unspeakable (The Nature of Things; Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen; Bohr’s Response; Alive and Dead; Entanglement and Locality; The Garden of Forking Paths; John Stewart Bell and Dr. Bertlmann’s Socks; Mermin’s Device; God Plays Dice with the World).- Afterword.- Notes.- Glossary.- Chronology.- Selected Bibliography.- Physical Constants.- Index.

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