About My Quantum Experiment

If you want to know why I wrote My Quantum Experiment, read “Old Man Gets More Befuddled.” This note merely explains why I made the book available for free on this website.

Book-writing is, for me, an odd, contradictory enterprise. One part of me, of which I’m proud, struggles to convey, as clearly and honestly as I can, how the world appears to me. Another part, of which I’m a little ashamed, hopes my book will make me rich and famous. Either way, I want above all to be read.

Once you get past the blow to your ego and finances, self-publishing online is exhilarating, because you can write and illustrate your book as you choose, without some asshole (other than yourself) second-guessing you. And anyone with internet access can read and respond to your work instantly.

I got help making this book from the same guys who helped me put together Mind-Body Problems. My former student Frankie Guarini designed the website for My Quantum Experiment, and my Russian pal Nikita Petrov created the groovy cover art (see above). I love those guys. This book’s illustrations also include my iPhone photos of all manner of things, from the Hoboken waterfront to technical diagrams inside my battered, marked-up textbooks. I hope these images, like the text, convey gritty authenticity rather than amateurish incompetence.

If you don’t like reading online, you can buy a paperback or e-book version of My Quantum Experiment from Amazon. These editions lack links and illustrations, and they have fewer footnotes than this online edition, but otherwise they’re the same. [1]

Notes

1. This is an endnote on endnotes. Most chapters of My Quantum Experiment (like those of Mind-Body Problems) contain numbered footnotes, which consist of odds and ends that don’t fit into the main text. See “Old Man Gets More Befuddled” for examples of what I mean.