In response to:
Quantum Theory and Quack Theory from the May 17, 1979 issue
To the Editors:
Readers responding to Martin Gardner’s article “Quantum Theory and Quack Theory” (NYR, May 17) and the accompanying statement of my own about the need for reorganizing the clear distinction between (1) the strange but well-verified and repeatable features of quantum mechanics and (2) the pseudo-scientific, nonrepeatable and non-verified so-called extra sensory perception (SCESP) have asked for references for further study additional to those I cited. On SCESP let me mention the very thorough book of C.E.M. Hansel, ESP: A Scientific Evaluation (Scribner’s, 1966). For a thoughtful discussion of the issues posed by quantum mechanics I do not know anything better than three books of essays, two by Niels Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (Wiley, 1958) and Essays 1958-1963 on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (Wiley, 1963) and one by F.P. Wigner, Symmetries and Reflections: Scientific Essays of Eugene P. Wigner (W.J. Moore and M. Scriven, eds., Indiana University Press, 1967); also references (and discussion) in my Frontiers of Time (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1979).
John Archibald Wheeler
Center for Theoretical Physics
The University of Texas
Austin, Texas
This Issue
September 27, 1979
This Issue
September 27, 1979
