COURTESY OF F. A. WOLF OF F. COURTESY In the 1970s, Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Fred Alan Wolf and others in the Fundamental Fysiks Group opened up discussions of quantum mechanics.

PHYSICS to produce gadgets to change the course of the cold war left little time for philosophizing. This meant that some of the key work in quantum mechanics in the 1970s and 1980s Quantum outsiders was done by a motley crew of young physi- cists, who worked largely outside universi- Hugh Gusterson enjoys a history of the quirky group that ties and published in obscure journals such pursued quantum physics when it was unfashionable. as Epistemological Letters — “a hand-typed, mimeographed newsletter”. They included Elizabeth Rauscher, Jack Sarfatti, Fred Alan t is hard to write a book about quantum emergence of ultra- Wolf, Saul-Paul Sirag, John Clauser and mechanics that is at once intellectually secure technologies, Fritjof Capra. The centre of their intellec- serious and a page-turner. But David based on quantum tual universe was the San Francisco Bay area. IKaiser succeeds in his account of a neglected encryption, for trans- Many were associated with the Fundamen- but important group of physicists who ferring money or tal Fysiks Group, an open discussion group brought together quantum mechanics, East- electronic votes. Such about quantum mechanics that started ern religion, parapsychology and the hallu- concepts were also, meeting in 1975 at the Lawrence Berkeley cinogen LSD. in ways that Kaiser Laboratory in California. Kaiser, a historian of science at the does not explore, Unable to secure professorships in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in influential beyond shrunken job market of the time, some of How the Hippies Cambridge, seeks to understand why a set of physics. Their cri- Saved Physics: the group lived on the edge of destitution. mind-bending ideas developed in the 1920s tique of reductionism Science, The luckiest was Fritjof Capra, whose book and 1930s by European physicists — includ- and emphasis on the Counterculture, The Tao of Physics (Wildwood House, 1975) ing Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Max effects of observers and the Quantum was translated into 23 languages and brought Born and Wolfgang Pauli — were largely led to the rise of ‘post- Revival him financial security. Other Fysiks members barred from discussion in mainstream US structuralist’ thinking DAVID KAISER cobbled together eccentric funding sources: W. W. Norton: 2011. physics after the Second World War. At the in the humanities. 372 pp. $26.95, George Weissmann founded a company heart of quantum mechanics lie these chal- But during the cold £19.99 selling a Tibetan herbal remedy until the lenging ideas: that electrons behave like waves war, the profound US Food and Drug Administration banned and particles; that one can know a particle’s philosophical issues raised by quantum his product. And others secured funding precise location or momentum but not both; mechanics were seen by many in physics as through the Pentagon to see whether quan- that the act of observing a particle changes its an unnecessary distraction. tum mechanics might explain the apparent behaviour; and that particles seem to com- Tracing shifts in university lecture notes spoon-bending abilities of psychics such as municate with one another across great dis- and textbooks after the Second World War, Uri Geller and to investigate telepathy. tances — the phenomena of nonlocality and Kaiser argues that the fundamental strange- Three New Age guru– entanglement that Albert Einstein derided as ness of quantum reality was drained out of entrepreneurs were even NATURE.COM “spooky action at a distance”. academic physics by the “high-throughput more colourful. Wer- David Kaiser on These radical concepts led to the field pedagogy” that accompanied a sixfold ner Erhard, founder of university funding: of quantum information science and the increase in PhD student numbers. Pressure the Est movement for go.nature.com/oflvik

278 | NATURE | VOL 476 | 18 AUGUST 2011 | CORRECTED 4 APRIL 2012 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT self-transformation, sponsored opulent EVOLUTION conferences on quantum mechanics at his San Francisco mansion. Members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group and Nobel laure- ates both enjoyed Erhard’s patronage despite The long trek to some physicists’ concerns about Est’s prac- tices. Michael Murphy, founder of the Esalen retreat on the California coast, sponsored domesticated bliss workshops at which physicists alternated their hot-tub discussions of quantum mechanics Our fondness for fauna comes from an evolved with massages and, in some cases, LSD trips. human need to nurture, argues Juliet Clutton-Brock. A third New Age activist and impresario, Ira Einhorn, somehow persuaded senior executives at Bell Telephone that the com- n The Animal Connection, palaeo­ evolution of human pany should copy and mail the latest papers anthropologist Pat Shipman describes language, the origin on quantum mechanics to some 300 people how humans have been connected of symbolism and — an early postal version of an e-mail dis- Iwith animals for the past 2.6 million years, the theory of mind. tribution list. This arrangement came to an and how this relationship distinguishes She proposes that abrupt end when the police discovered the us from other animals. She argues that language followed decomposing body of Einhorn’s girlfriend in the evolution of human behaviour was from the need for a trunk in his apartment. driven by this connection in three stages: humans to com- Interspersing entertaining anecdotes with toolmaking, language and domestication municate animal- explanations of concepts in quantum phys- of animals and plants. But Shipman’s book related information ics, Kaiser’s book can be read on many levels. is more a review of what has long been in their quest for The Animal At its most challenging, it is an intellectual known than the “New Perspective” prom- food. Language Connection: A New Perspective history of quantum mechanics. But it is also ised by its subtitle. “allowed humans to on What Makes us a yarn about an eccentric group of physicists Shipman starts by outlining the charac- talk about animals Human who refused to be defeated by their margin- teristics that separate the fossil hominin and in time, with PAT SHIPMAN alization within their own discipline. And, Ardipithecus ramidus — found in Ethio- animals”, she says. W. W. Norton: 2011. as social history, it offers a window onto one pia and dated to around 4.2 million years Towards the end 336 pp. $26.95, £20 of the most colourful periods of twentieth- ago — from other primates. Continuing of the Pleistocene, century US history. on through the australopithecines, she around 32,000 years ago, came the first The book makes important observations describes how, from 2.6 million years ago, domestic dogs. The cultivation of plants about the social dynamics of physics in the “Hominids transformed rocks into stone and the domestication of livestock in United States during the cold war. Kaiser tools and stone tools transformed homi- many parts of the world followed in the argues that, even as military patronage nids from bipedal apes that are [sic] basi- early Holocene. Shipman describes what is pumped massive financial resources into cally herbivorous into predators”. This was known about this process, including argu- physics, the discipline’s horizons shrank. the beginning of the animal connection, ments around the outdated view that the University physicists disdained the philo- accompanying the evolution of Homo erec- primary motive for domestication was the sophical questions that had enlivened tus and its expansion out of Africa. provision of meat. She also explores ‘self- pre-war European physics and developed Shipman goes on to discuss the domestication’ — the theory that, from a narrowly instrumentalist pedagogy that sometimes became a straitjacket. Kaiser describes some students holding secret meetings to discuss quantum mechan- ics behind their advisers’ backs, having been warned that “thinking seriously about foun-

dations was a waste of time and a detriment W. R. BILENDUKE/GETTY to one’s career”. He also notes that the editor of Physical Review banned articles discuss- ing interpretations of quantum mechanics; a brilliant experiment on Bell’s theorem by John Clauser was scarcely cited because of the pre- vailing orthodoxy. Clauser was told that his experiment was not “real physics”, and he had a terrible time on the job market. By contrast, the heroes of Kaiser’s story “strove to expand the physics profession’s collective mental space”. This is an equally apt description of Kaiser’s approach in this illuminating book. ■

Hugh Gusterson is professor of anthropology and sociology at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia 22030, USA. His latest book is People of the Bomb. e-mail: [email protected] Domesticated 32,000 years ago, dogs remain central to many societies, including the Inuit.

18 AUGUST 2011 | VOL 476 | NATURE | 279 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS scavenging around human settlements, ASTRONOMY wild animals gradually became habitu- ated, were selected for tameness, and over generations became domesticated. Shipman outlines the distinction of true Supernova century domestication from taming as “the per- manence of the change in the wild ani- Jay Pasachoff relishes a novel that brings to life the mal”. Yet she misses what I believe is the scientific stars of the 1600s. essence of why humans relate so readily to animals, which is supported by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy in her book on the evolu- omewhat eclipsed in popular culture on the interaction of tion of hominins as cooperative breeders, by his great Italian contemporary Gali- each with Rudolph Mothers and Others (Harvard University leo Galilei, Johannes Kepler is finally II, the Holy Roman Press, 2009). Sachieving the iconic status he has long held Emperor, who became Humans, Blaffer Hrdy says, alone in science. In 2009, the seventeenth-century Kepler’s patron and among the great apes, readily nurture German astronomer was the subject of an whose name is com- each other’s children. Without this opera by US composer Philip Glass (Nature memorated in the help, few children in hunter-gatherer 462, 724; 2009). Now, Stuart Clark’s novel — Rudolphine Tables societies would survive to adulthood. the first in a trilogy about famous astrono- (1627). These were There are many examples of hunter- mers — puts fictional flesh on the bones of produced by Kepler The Sky’s Dark gatherers extending the shared care of Kepler’s life and times to enjoyable effect. Labyrinth: A Novel using the laws of plan- their infants to the adoption of young Only 60 years or so after Copernicus pro- STUART CLARK etary orbits, which he animals. So the human desire to enfold vided the idea of the heliocentric Universe, Polygon: 2011. derived on the basis of other species within our societies may Kepler worked out the orbits of the planets. 272 pp. £12.99 Tycho’s observations. be explained as having evolved from The story told in The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth, Working with these the combined instincts for nurture and which takes its name from a phrase in Gali- ‘planetary tables’, Kepler accurately pre- domination. leo’s 1623 book Il Saggiatore (The Assayer), dicted that transits of Mercury and of Venus I believe that the inborn human desire is well known. Kepler assisted aristocratic would occur in 1631. The first of these was to nurture children and animals was fol- court astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague, observed in Europe, but he did not realize lowed by the domestication of dogs, and taking over Tycho’s precise observations of that there would soon be a second transit of all the livestock animals whose social Mars and its changing position in the sky. Venus, in 1639. (The next transit of Venus behaviour allowed it, in hunter-gatherer From these studies, Kepler deduced his will be visible from Earth on 5–6 June 2012, societies that were under pressure in the three laws of planetary motion, the first two depending on the observer’s location; the early Holocene from population growth of which he published in Astronomia Nova following one is not until 2117.) and climate change. Shipman describes (The New Astronomy) in 1609, the same The author paints the conflicts between the conventional theory that domes- year that Galileo first pointed his telescope Lutherans and Catholics that drove the tication follows from the selection by skywards. Lutheran Kepler from Graz to Prague, and humans of favoured attributes. I see the Clark depicts the clash of two strong per- that helped govern how Pope Urban VIII process as more complicated and in two sonalities: the haughty Tycho, and Kepler, treated Galileo. Clark describes the blood parts: biological and cultural. whose confidence in his own mathemati- that literally flowed during the internecine It is now accepted that some wild ani- cal abilities never wavered. He draws, too, warfare between Rudolph II and his brother, mals have cultures, that is, the inherit- Matthias, as the latter’s troops attacked while ance of learned behaviour. With taming, Kepler and his family cowered in the city — an animal is brought into a protected evoking parallels with battles today. place where it learns a new set of social My wife and I have made several astron- relationships, as well as new feeding omy-related pilgrimages: to Prague to see the and reproductive strategies. Biological plaque over Kepler’s lodgings and his joint INTERFOTO/ALAMY domestication is complete only when this statue with Tycho; to dine at the Golden ‘culture’ becomes heritable. Griffin where Tycho lodged for a time, now Shipman ends with the conviction that a restaurant and hotel; to visit a monument the ancient, innate connection between (we found it defaced) to Kepler in Regens- humans and animals is grossly under- burg, Bavaria, possibly near where his bones estimated in today’s urban landscape. I were originally buried until they were lost; see little evidence for this. Despite the and to see the house in Regensburg where inexorable spread of megacities and fac- Kepler died in 1630, now a museum. I was tory farms, the connection with both also able to help the Houghton Library domestic and wild animals still occu- at Harvard University in Cambridge, pies the minds and lives of innumerable Massachusetts, acquire the only known copy people around the world. ■ of Kepler’s 1603 almanac. As Clark emphasizes, 1603 was thought Juliet Clutton-Brock is a research to be particularly auspicious at the time. associate at the Natural History Rudolph II is quoted as saying, “Eight hun- Museum, London. Her forthcoming book dred years earlier, Charlemagne founded is Animals as Domesticates: A World Europe; eight hundred years before him, View Through History. Christ was born.” Soon thereafter, Kepler e-mail: [email protected] Astronomer Johannes Kepler in his final decade. saw a supernova — the last seen in our

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Galaxy and now named after him. I could all but smell the streets and markets of seventeenth-century Prague Q&A Daphne Sheldrick in this novel. In one memorable passage, Clark describes Kepler taking the path to the castle, across the Stone Bridge, where in 1611 he wrote his little book on Elephant rescuer the snowflake, recently republished to Daphne Sheldrick was the first person to rear baby elephants successfully by hand, and has celebrate its 400th anniversary. worked with animals for 50 years in Kenya. As she stars in an IMAX film chronicling her efforts, Clark also brings to life interest- she describes her experience of conservation and animal husbandry. ing minor characters and conjures up Kepler’s eventful family history, includ- ing the joys of parenthood, his difficult How did you get involved Born to Be mother (whom he had to clear of suspi- with elephants? Wild 3D cions of witchcraft), and the tragic deaths I grew up on a highland On release now at IMAX cinemas. of his children and first wife, Barbara. farm in Kenya. We had a Thoughtfully crafted dialogues reveal lot of wild orphan animals the tension between Kepler’s rationalism because in those days wild animals were eve- and the ‘magical’ beliefs of others. rywhere. I married into the wildlife service Interspersed among the chapters and lived in Tsavo National Park, where wild about Kepler are several about Galileo’s orphans started coming in — buffalo, rhinos time in Padua, and elephants. The elephants were a huge “The fun Florence and challenge: nobody had managed to raise a of reading Rome. In these, newborn calf. My husband thought it was plausible words Kepler endorses impossible. Eventually I managed to keep one from the mouths the veracity of alive for six months, having lost many others. Daphne Sheldrick with one of her early charges. of Kepler Galileo’s reports We knew we were on the right track. and Galileo of seeing new to have the staying power to see the project overwhelms ‘stars’ around Why are elephants so challenging to rear? through. I’ve been working with elephants for objections Jupiter through The milk formula is very special. So is the 50 years — that’s most of my life. (WWW.SHELDRICKWILDLIFETRUST.ORG) SHELDRICK WILDLIFE TRUST DAVID to invented his newfangled husbandry. It took 28 years of trial and error conversations.” optical tube. to get both about right. We knew that ele- How do you return hand-raised elephants to And Galileo’s phants’ milk was high in fat. We added extra the wild? lack of response to a letter from Kepler is cream and butter to cows’ milk, but then we They are one of the easiest species to return; explained as a result of religious rivalry: learned that the elephants lived a lot longer it just takes a long time. It isn’t a question of the Catholic church in Rome feared on skimmed milk. So we scouted around the getting an animal to two or three years old that lapsed-Lutheran Kepler would side shops to try to find infant human formula and tipping it out in the bush. They go to with their Protestant enemies. that contained vegetable fat instead — the the rehabilitation stations in Tsavo with their Today, in an age when Vatican astrono- nearest thing to the fat in elephants’ milk human family until they have made friends mers have telescopes in Arizona and host is coconut fat. With this mix, we have now in the wild herds. They are introduced to the summer schools on cosmology at the managed to raise 130 elephants, which are wild herds by other now-integrated orphans. Pope’s summer residence at Castel Gan- still living today, some with their own young. No elephant we have raised has been unable dolfo near Rome, it is hard to evoke the to go wild in the fullness of time. mood of the early seventeenth century. How do these animals become orphaned? Clark manages it. Elephants are fragile in infancy. In a perfect What does the future hold for elephants in Just as Shakespeare’s inventions about world they would not have any enemies, but Africa? the lives of kings give us too much pleas- the growing human population is taking up The elephant population in Africa will fall ure to resist his playing fast and loose more and more land that was once used for to a much lower level as the human popula- with history, the fun of reading plausi- elephant migration routes. An elephant does tion rises. But the absence of elephants has a ble words from the mouths of Kepler, not know the difference between grass and big impact. They create the water holes and Galileo and their contemporaries over- maize [corn] and can eat a human’s liveli- the trails that lead to them; they turn thick whelms petty objections to invented hood in an afternoon. And the demand in unproductive scrubland into productive conversations. I am less fond of Clark’s the Far East for ivory has grown tremen- grassland; they walk enormous distances minor chronological adjustments and his dously in the past few years. The only hope and distribute seeds in their dung. Without invented character, Cardinal Pippe. for elephants is to ban all trade in ivory. the elephant you lose lots of other animals. The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth deserves a broad readership. I look forward to Have you shared your methods? What do you hope people will take away Clark’s forthcoming novel on Isaac New- We have tried to. We are contacted by people from Born to be Wild 3D? ton and Edmond Halley, and the final from all over Africa, but raising elephants Everyone that sees it cannot fail to go part of the trilogy, on Albert Einstein, is a long-term thing. They are with you for home having learned a lot about elephants Edwin Hubble and Georges Lemaître. ■ up to 10 years, sometimes longer. They need — how caring and nurturing they are and 24-hour care and feed- how magnificent they are to one another. Jay M. Pasachoff is professor of NATURE.COM ing every 3 hours, day Elephants can provide lots of lessons for astronomy at Williams College, More on the surge in and night. They are humans. ■ SEE CORRESPONDENCE P.282 Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA. the ivory trade: milk-dependent for e-mail: [email protected] go.nature.com/k9sgfk 3 years. You have got INTERVIEW BY DANIEL CRESSEY

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