Adam Becker, "The Trouble with Quantum Physics, and Why It Matters"

Quantum physics is arguably the most successful scientific theory ever devised. It explains a wide variety of natural phenomena to an extraordinary degree of accuracy-everything from semiconductors to the Sun itself. Yet it’s unclear what this immensely fruitful theory says about reality. Is it really impossible to talk about what’s happening to atoms and subatomic particles when we’re not looking at them? For many years, the standard answer to questions like this was to "shut up and calculate." A historical myth went along with this answer that said Einstein had once worried about these questions, but was proven wrong by the great Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Yet the myth is untrue, and these thorny quantum paradoxes are far more important than most physicists once believed. In this talk, which is based on his book, Dr. Becker explains the puzzles at the heart of quantum physics, why they matter, and what really went down between Einstein and Bohr 90 years ago.