The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics

There are a good number of books on the shelf near my desk that I notice have a bookmark sticking up out of the pages. THE DANCING WU LI MASTERS was one of them. I always thought of this title as one of the great primers on modern physics but I had not made it through to the end. Now that I have I am starting to think that Gary Zukav may be one of our great thinkers. I am sitting here deeply impressed with how the last chapter, "The End of Science," written around 1978 is the prelude to George Musser's late 2015 book on physics and the end of space, SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE.

I believe it was Richard Feynman who told his sister Joan that when you dive into a difficult book and get stuck, go back to the beginning and start over. I think show more of this as similar to getting a car up a snowy road. Now that I have made it all the way through DANCING in the mass paperback version, I ordered a good copy of the hardback and plan to back up and get a start on the icy hill yet another time.

Zukav claims to have a lack of education in physics and a liberal arts mentality. When Zukav wrote DANCING there were not many physicists yet who were familiar with John Stewart Bell's theorem regarding quantum entanglement and the fact that it was being proven. Yet Zukav looked into and predicted the end of science. Which is much of where Musser arrives today with SPOOKY. As you read them, pay no attention to your smoke alarm. That is just the stuff curling from your ears. show less

There are a good number of books on the shelf near my desk that I notice have a bookmark sticking up out of the pages. THE DANCING WU LI MASTERS was one of them. I always thought of this title as one of the great primers on modern physics but I had not made it through to the end. Now that I have I am starting to think that Gary Zukav may be one of our great thinkers. I am sitting here deeply impressed with how the last chapter, "The End of Science," written around 1978 is the prelude to George Musser's late 2015 book on physics and the end of space, SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE.

I believe it was Richard Feynman who told his sister Joan that when you dive into a difficult book and get stuck, go back to the beginning and start over. I think show more of this as similar to getting a car up a snowy road. Now that I have made it all the way through DANCING in the mass paperback version, I ordered a good copy of the hardback and plan to back up and get a start on the icy hill yet another time.

Zukav claims to have a lack of education in physics and a liberal arts mentality. When Zukav wrote DANCING there were not many physicists yet who were familiar with John Stewart Bell's theorem regarding quantum entanglement and the fact that it was being proven. Yet Zukav looked into and predicted the end of science. Which is much of where Musser arrives today with SPOOKY. As you read them, pay no attention to your smoke alarm. That is just the stuff curling from your ears. show less

Attempts to build connections between the tricky concepts of physics, e.g. the way that some things do not 'exist' until they are observed, with mystical /religious/ metaphysical concepts. However he misses the points that : 1. the effects he discusses are at the quantum level, when matter is collected in bulk (i.e. more than a few pico grams) then bulk effects come into play which swamp quantum effects; 2. humans have evolved in the bulk universe & so are not sensitive to quantum level effects. (even when quantum effects are harnessed by modern technology they are done so in bulk)
He raises fair points about the ability of the human mind to think in different ways in order to understand the counter-intuitive parts of physics. But that show more does not mean we have to become bhuddist mystics. show less

I've finally finished The Dancing Wu Li Masters after years of it sitting on my shelf and weeks of reflecting on what it is saying. It's an old book when considering present developments in the observation of quantum mechanics, but quantum theory itself is twice as old and since its inception has hardly changed. This book however is the first I've read that was capable of viscerally explaining the non-locality and non-linearity of space-time. Limited by "symbols" it acknowledges this limit and it dances with you within these confines so as to allow you, the reader, to experience the reality that the ambiguity of language prohibits. I've read books that describe the world in terms of eastern philosophy, relativity, string theory, quantum show more electrodynamics, probability functions, and from the historical perspective of the human perception of time itself, and yet none of them were able to convey what was on the tip of their brains, and the tip of mine as well. They all touch upon the fact that at the plank level no further observations are possible, or that energy and matter, waves and particles, are merely two different manifestations of the underlying fabric of space-time. That the linear passage of time is only a construct resulting from the methods with which the relativistic mind collects the information, while space-time itself is only motion, with no preference towards forward or backward. They all extol the words of Bohm, Bell and Schrödinger, but none of them ever try to conceptualize these precepts beyond the application of their useless symbolism, or then take so many angles in driving home the truth of the matter.

Here's a mantra saved like a jewel in one of the very last pages.

Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.

As far as information is concerned, this book pales in comparison to the likes of In Search of Schrödinger's Kittens or The Elegant Universe, but it's what this book leaves open to interpretation that brought me the most pleasure. show less

My favorite quote from the novel:

�Ûω۪Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.‰Û

Touted as an easy layman‰Ûªs introduction to the history of Quantum Physics, I took a while not because the experiments of Planck, Einstein, Finkelstein and Bohm the author breaks down for his reader so well are hard to conceptualize. It is the meaning of the ideas show more behind these experiments that are heavy to digest.

A central idea is that there is energy in everything and what happens to B will always affect A in some way. Although you can‰Ûªt predict specific events, you can predict probabilities. And, ‰ÛÏNot only do we influence our reality ‰Û_ we actually create it.‰Û

Another idea is the fundamental belief that we don‰Ûªt know what we don‰Ûªt know and that the new physics might actually be the study of consciousness.

There are also intriguing comparisons made in this book between some of the tenants of new physics and eastern religion and mysticism.

Some argue that Quantum Mechanics is the only science that allows for the concept of God. Newtonian physics doesn‰Ûªt apply to the subatomic world although the subatomic world includes Newtonian physics. Quantum Physics goes beyond the machinery of things and explains matter in terms of energy and organics. It describes an openness to experience, rather than sole reliance on scientific description that physicists have learned to place value on.

In this book Zukav captures a moment for scientists when they realized they didn‰Ûªt know what they thought they knew. It wasn‰Ûªt the first time the scientific community and the world had come to such realization, of course. For hundreds of years we thought the world was flat only to find out it was round. But I was fascinated by the idea in a more recent day and age of how such enlightenment and monumental shift in thinking might feel. show less

This is an amazing book and amazing so, because it revitalized the science training within me! As a teenager, I was so absorbed and completely fascinated by Neils Bohr's postulates, Max Planck's Theory that Physics was the air i breathed! And, after that phase I realized I was so out of touch of this very nature- atoms/protons/ quasi-protons/ quarks! Wow! This book truly is meant for the ordinary layman who is or was never a science student! I can even think of a few friends I can gift this book to! What science really means in the life of a student and a researcher versus in the ordinary life of a layman, this book completely closes gaps on it!

What a wonderful lucid style of explaining modern physics! I kept reading hungrily, show more savouring every single word, if there were equations, my joy would have have known no bounds! Clearly, one of the best resource books for everyone! The Wu Li masters philosophy is interesting too! This book is highly recommended and if i were on the education board, this would just be THE book to study! show less

Silly Drivel; Welcome to the world of pseudo scientists claiming that quantum physics can prove any theory. Deepak Chopra would be proud.
If this book were what it claimed to be, a sort of physics for the layperson, I could get behind that. But its not- it's more about Zukav trying to use physics to prove his favorite flavor of eastern philosophy.
Anyone who thinks by reading this book they can hold their own in an actual scientific conversation will be sorely embarrassed. You will be pegged as a new age nut job in the first 5 minutes.