Many of our WES members belong to the WES Biology Reading Group. They have enjoyed reading and discussing books on current advances in the life sciences. There also seems to be interest in following a similar format for books in the physical sciences. Would you be interested? Here is a date:  Thursday, June 14 at 7:30pm. You are invited to Glen Chinery’s home in Silver Spring for an organizational meeting and a trial run. The trial run will discuss the new book by Adam Becker, “What is Real – the unfinished quest for the meaning of quantum physics”. If all goes well, we will set up a plan for future meetings on this and other books. Right now, our expectations are just to find out who is interested. Let us know if you are interested by responding to plbaker@me.com or signing up for the mailing list at http://eepurl.com/dsHDrL

Now a short word about the book. As you may know, experiments give contradictory evidence on the question of what exists at the quantum level. The prevailing view or party line is that we shouldn’t think about what is real at the quantum level. There have always been dissenting views going back, for example, to Einstein’s paper with Posner and Rosen in 1935. Becker’s book gives a very insightful account of the history of the issue and alternative world views. The book lacks equations (a plus for many of us) so it is intended for the general public. The author is a PhD physicist with a minor in Philosophy so his book is authoritative and strives for a logical clarity that is missing in many popular books.