We're living in the Quantum Age, says Brian Clegg

In his latest book, Brian Clegg looks at how the physics of the very small has transformed our lives.

Tell us a bit about The Quantum Age. There have been a number of books about quantum physics, but they concentrated entirely on the science. I wanted to come at this from a different direction, because quantum theory has made such a difference to our lives. I’d argue that just as we’ve had the likes of the Stone Age and the steam age, where a particular technology has transformed the world, so now we live in the quantum age. In a sense, pretty well everything we do is based on quantum physics, given that all matter and light is made up of quantum particles – but what I mean here is technology that makes explicit use of quantum physics and couldn’t have been designed without an understanding of it. Anything, for instance, using electronics or lasers or superconductors. A smartphone alone has at least seven different quantum technologies in it.

So The Quantum Age does cover the basics of quantum theory in an approachable way, but it also brings in existing and upcoming applications in different fields – and some of the background to the development of quantum technology, which can be quite mindboggling. A case in point is the development of the laser in the late 1950s. Gordon Gould, one of the key figures in a fascinating story, had dabbled with communism in his youth, and in the paranoid America of the McCarthy era, this came back to bite him. When lasers were classified, Gould was told he was not allowed to read his own notebooks, as he did not have security clearance. More bizarre still, two of his referees were discounted as they had beards, so clearly could not be trusted.

What made you tackle this area of science? My degree was in physics, and I always felt that we get our physics education back-to-front. We still teach children what is essentially Victorian physics. But I talk to primary school children about quantum theory and relativity, the two great planks in the development of modern physics – and they love it. Of course there is no attempt to do the maths, but they find the basic principles fascinating as they are weird and wonderful, where so much physics that is taught in school is, frankly, rather dull.

The other benefit the children have is that they have less of a problem with the counter-intuitive aspects of quantum theory than adults. The idea, for example, that a quantum particle will after a little time only exist as a cloud of probability, giving it the ability to act as if it were in more than one place at a time, or to pass through impenetrable barriers seems less of an issue to them – yet this kind of quantum weirdness is directly used in the technologies based on it. I’ve written about quantum theory both because it is fascinating – and weird and wonderful – and because it is so significant to our everyday life.

You’ve got quite a range of publications under your belt – what was your favourite to write? It’s always difficult to pick out a book: it’s like being asked to pick one of your children as a favourite. One of the great things about being a science writer, rather than a working scientist is that I get to flit around all kinds of different topics that interest me – so I’ve never really written a science or maths book on something that doesn’t interest me, whether it’s infinity or time machines. But I think my favourite to write was Dice World, which came out last year and I’m delighted to say is on the longlist for the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for science books. It was great fun to write a book about probability and randomness, in part because I was able to include an experiment using the slightly mindboggling Bayes theorem where I asked people to make a deduction about my dog. It is also the source of my favourite talk – I do a lot of public speaking based on my books, but in the Dice World talk I cover everything from how to toss a head ten times in a row to recreating a game show that left the woman with the world's highest IQ being reviled by a whole list of academics... until they discovered she was right.

How do you go about writing your books, and what’s next? Because I think you can only make a book engaging if you are fascinated by the topic yourself, I start with what interests me. But then I need to winnow down what can be a whole host of ideas to those which are also liable to interest my readers, as there’s no point writing a book I can’t sell. Once I’ve agreed a project with a publisher it typically takes around nine months for the book to be written, and another six months to a year in the production process before the book emerges. I usually have two books on the go at different stages, one with my UK publisher, Icon, and one with my US publisher, St Martin’s Press. So my next title, from St Martin’s, is out later this year and is called Final Frontier, about the manned exploration of space, and how we make a mistake if we consider it a scientific venture. My next book with Icon will be very different, but is still in the secret development stages.

Tell us about your other projects I spend the biggest part of my time writing those two main books of the year, but one of the great things about my job is that you can have a real mix of activities so you don’t get stale. As well as the books and the speaking engagements, I do some magazine and newspaper work – I’ve written for everything from Playboy to Good Housekeeping – and get the opportunity to appear occasionally on the radio and TV. Most recently I was on the Christmas special of University Challenge and talked quantum physics on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. Throw in the popular science book review site www.popularscience.co.uk, which I edit, blogging and other online activities, and I keep pretty busy.

Brian Clegg is the author of The Quantum Age (Icon) £14.99 HBK/ £7.99 eBook, out now. Read our review and find out how to win a copy here.

Find more from Brian at www.brianclegg.net.