10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17104
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2038-3460
17104
1
en
Assunta Viteritti
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
David Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival, W.W. Norton & Company, 2011
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Book Reviews
2013-07-12
2023-06-02
2013-07-12
2023-07-17
211-215
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Assunta Viteritti
2013/07/12
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17104
211
University of Roma “La Sapienza”
2038-3460
1
en
215
David Kaiser, How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival, W.W. Norton & Company, 2011
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17104/16040
4
Book Review                                                            211


                                  ***


David Kaiser
How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quan-
tum Revival
New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2011, pp. 372
   !
Assunta Viteritti University of Roma “La Sapienza”

    The book traces the hidden history of quantum theory from the 1930s
to the 1970s – the years of World War II, the Cold War and the counter-
culture revolution – with some references to the present day. Divided into
10 chapters, it deals with one of the most intriguing fields of theoretical
physics, which, according to Kaiser, benefited from the contributions of
borderline scientists, as we may call them, who had a penchant for New
Age philosophy. As the book shows, physics actually thrived on and fos-
tered the 1970s counterculture in American college campuses, in a mish-
mash of LSD trips, Eastern mysticism, spoon-bending psychics, charis-
matic activists and freewheeling researchers looking for new challenging
routes.
    In his rich, witty and humorous narrative, Kaiser identifies the con-
nections and alliances between the founding fathers of modern physics –
namely, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg and Schrödinger – and the quantum
physicists in the Bay Area (such as Elizabeth Rauscher, George Weiss-
mann, John Francis Clause, Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Fred Alan Wolf
and Herry Stapp, among others). In the years between 1975 and 1979
(when the group split up), these researchers looked for a new approach to
physics, defying the “shut up and calculate” attitude that had dominated
it since the post-war period. Thanks to their work, in the mid-1970s,
quantum physics took on new philosophical challenges, establishing fruit-
ful connections with the theories of perception and New Age culture, and
contributing to a new understanding of the universe (much of the spirit of
the time is captured in Fritjof Capra’s famous book The Tao of Physics:
An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern
Mysticism, published in 1975).
    Kaiser argues that quantum information science, which is today used
to securely transfer money and electronic votes, was born in a cultural
context that was totally foreign to traditional academic or business
schools, being rooted instead in the 1970s counterculture. It was in this
context that an unconventional bunch of scientists went back to some of
the theoretical issues posed in the 1920s – issues that some physicists had
continued to explore during the Fascism, the Cold War and the Vietnam
War.
212                                                          Tecnoscienza - 4(1)

    David Kaiser reconstructs the hidden history of the Fundamental
Fysiks Group in Berkeley, and its wide range of followers, by collecting a
vast number of interviews with the protagonists of those years. He metic-
ulously and humorously chronicles the lives of these non-conformist
dreamers, who questioned the boundaries between science and con-
sciousness and laid the foundations for a new theoretical physics, whose
most recent application, still in development, is quantum cryptography.
    In 2012, the book was selected as the “Book of the Year” by the pres-
tigious Physics World magazine, which found the book “well written, sci-
entifically interesting and novel” and described it as “a rollicking good
read”.
    The book is about network builders, groups, fluid alliances, conver-
gences, opportunities that become projects, promoters, financial backers,
journals, group conflicts and personal rivalries, controversies, search for
experimental evidence. It tells the story of a handful of emerging physi-
cists who dared to look into the borderline where physics and other dis-
ciplines meet, trying to solve age-old but still unanswered questions.
    Kaiser tells this long story in an STS perspective, without making ex-
plicit references or turning it into an academic exercise, so that even non-
expert readers may approach the subject and enjoy the reading, while a
more experienced eye will notice and appreciate the hidden threads that
weave the book to Latour’s Science in Action, Kuhn’s paradigm shifts
and James Watson’s personal account of the discovery of the double-helix
structure of DNA.
    In the first chapter, Kaiser introduces the cultural climate in which the
group was operating. At the end of the 1960s, the Vietnam War, the
global economic downturn, energy crisis and “stagflation” led to massive
cutbacks on spending for basic research, especially for physics. In 1967
military planners revoked draft deferments for undergraduates and, soon
afterwards, for graduate students as well. As a consequence, at the begin-
ning of the 1970s, student enrolments plummeted dramatically. Any in-
terest in quantum mechanics and its philosophical implications had van-
ished after the Second World War. In the Cold War period, student en-
rolments in physics started increasing again, but the “shut up and calcu-
late” branch of physics prevailed, turning physics from a broad-thinking
science, open to discussions and interpretations, into a hyper-pragmatic
enterprise. At the beginning of the 1970s, with the worsening of the eco-
nomic crisis, the students joining the army for the Vietnam war and the
rise of student movements, a ragtag crew of young physicists banded to-
gether and founded an informal discussion group “in a fit of pique and
frustration”, as Kaiser puts it. They reserved a seminar room at Berkeley
and met on Friday afternoons at 4 P.M. The founders were Elizabeth
Rauscher, the only woman in the group, and George Weissmann, at the
time both graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley.
They started with informal brainstorming sessions, which in a few years
became increasingly popular, and called themselves Fundamental Fysiks
Book Review                                                               213
Group. As Kaiser argues, the group was questioning Popper’s demarca-
tion theory and its sharp distinction between science and non-science.
The physicists who gravitated toward the group in those years had a pen-
chant for psychedelics and quantum physics, and trespassed the line of
demarcation between the two.
    Chapters 2 and 3 are dedicated to the development of the group and
its research themes. Making the most of their New Age entrepreneurial
spirit, they managed to secure financial backing and concentrated their
interests, experimental practice, publications and conferences on the
work of Irish physicist John Bell, who in the mid-1960s conducted a se-
ries of theoretical studies that had little to do with the “shut up and calcu-
late” approach. The relevance and theoretical significance of Bell’s work
would be too long and complicated (and impossible for me) to explain
here. Suffice it to say that his work, which became the source and the
driving force behind the theoretical studies of the Berkeley’s group, was
deep-rooted in electromagnetism, and called into question some aspects
of Einstein’s theory. Bell’s tests intended to demonstrate the non-local
nature of quantum mechanics; the hypothesis he investigated at an exper-
imental level was that there are hidden variables that do not operate in a
deterministic way. Particles, according to Bell, are correlated by non-local
and non-deterministic hidden entanglements. Non-locality and entangle-
ment were a major source of inspiration for the members of the Funda-
mental Fysiks Group, who in those years produced a vast number of pub-
lications on this subject. Their approach to science was a sort of “collage”
combining experimental tests (as in the case of Clauser, who tried to dis-
prove Bell’s theorem and ended up confirming it) and theoretical reflec-
tions verging on metaphysics and consciousness expansion (such as those
by Elizabeth Rauscher).
    As Kaiser explains in Chapter 4, Bell’s study of non-locality and quan-
tum entanglement provided a common ground where scientists and hip-
pies could join together. The road map of quantum physics ended up
leading to New Age philosophy. Measurements gave way to speculations
and paranormal experiments. In the same years, the Group established a
significant relationship with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), where
a number of conferences were held on themes related to parapsychology
and consciousness expansion. Although these physicists often ventured
into psychedelic realms, they never pushed their ideas too far, basically
recognizing – as Nobel laureate Wigner argued – that it was not possible
to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way
without reference to the consciousness of the observer.
    Chapters 5, 6 and 7 examine the dissemination of their research find-
ings through journals, conferences and seminars. In 1976 the first work-
shop on physics and consciousness was held at the Esalen Institute in Big
Sur, California. The Institute became the place where different interests,
groups, workshops and forums converged, integrating the development
of human potential with Eastern religions and quantum physics. In this
214                                                            Tecnoscienza - 4(1)

place, researchers experimented with new ways of approaching science
and consciousness. There were no chairs, only cushions, hot tubs, incens-
es, candles and LSD.
    One of the foremost exponents of the counterculture operating in this
context was Ira Einhorn, an environmentalist advocate and a friend of
Kuhn, who promoted and sponsored a number of events, such as the
Earth Day, bringing together quantum physics, ecology and pacifism, and
was eventually convicted for the murder of his girlfriend.
    The Tao of Physics by Capra was published in the same years, bridging
the gap between science and consciousness, and becoming a true best
seller as well as the ideological manifesto of a whole generation.
    In the last three chapters, Kaiser wonders whether and to what extent
the Fundamental Fysiks Group can be considered as a marginal phenom-
enon in the history of physics. In spite of their marginal position, they ac-
tually left a memorable mark, as they were actually able to connect psy-
chedelic realms and mainstream science (Chap. 8). The author examines
the impact of the group on the developments of a scientific research field
that has today evolved into quantum cryptography (Chap. 9), and goes
through their publications (such as Nick Herbert’s work on the flash sys-
tem) to retrace their critical reception and consider the most recent appli-
cations of their ideas of quantum and consciousness. In Chapter 10, he
describes the end of the Fundamental Fysiks Group in 1979, their legacy
and contributions to a series of cultural transformations that started in
Berkeley and the San Francisco Bay Area and continue today in Silicon
Valley, with biotechnologies and Apple.
    In Kaiser’s opinion, the cultural role of the group is related to its abil-
ity to foster a new approach to science, broaden physicists’ research per-
spectives and expand our collective imagination. The Fundamental Fysiks
Group may not have saved physics but has certainly renewed its visions
and practices. Through the Fundamental Fysiks Group, the “Fringe” of
physic research (to quote the title of a well-known TV series) established
a fruitful connection between the most radical worlds of psychedelic New
Age and institutional physics. The work of these intrinsically post-modern
physicists has produced consequences in distant realities, which sound as
a confirmation of the hidden entanglement and non-locality of Bell’s the-
orem. While experiencing that fantastic moment of convergence between
the 1970s Californian New Age and the attempts to go beyond Einstein’s
theory of relativity, those hippy physicists could not imagine that, 40 years
later, their “entanglement” would arrive so far. As we said, this sounds as
a confirmation of Bell’s theory, which was actually verified in 2012 by a
team of researchers led by Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna,
who successfully performed a quantum teleportation experiment.
    In his account, Kaiser follows the “anomalies” of science, as Kuhn
would put it, and the new and multiple paradigms they produce through
practice. Today, electronic money transactions can actually be carried out
by using entangled photons to create an unbreakable communications
Book Review                                                          215
code, and quantum cryptography is used by banks and financial institu-
tions. Hippies may not have saved physics, but have certainly contributed
to projecting it forward, paving the way for quantum-encrypted bank
transfers, transmissions of entangled photons, and much more. In the fi-
nal acknowledgments of the book, Kaiser states that writing this book
was an amazing adventure for him. We bet it was.
