The full title is Quantum Bullshit: how to ruin your life with advice from quantum physics. I picked up this book at a JCPL Whale of a Used Book Sale.

I read a little of the book before diving into it, but I was not prepared for the huge number of times fuck and shit appeared in the tome. While I had a feeling profanity would be used quite a bit, I did not expect it to be used that much.

Here are some things of note:

• He dedicated the book to “Albert Einstein: You would have hated this.” I agree. However, I think he might have learned some stuff, such as how his work led to lasers, and so much more.
• He took a good dig at our current President by comparing him to Lord Kelvin. If Lord Kelvin was alive today, he would be the kind of person TYPING INSULTING THINGS IN ALL CAPS ON TWITTER, and that is not very becoming for leaders in science–or a country.
• I learned that when things glow when they are hot, whether it is lava or copper or iron at 1000 degrees C, they glow in the same color–bright red. (Both of these on page 5.)
• Page 42. There is three volume set called the Crystal Bible. The link goes to the first in the series by Judy Hall. This covers the “properties of each crystal including the spiritual, mental and psychological, emotional and physical effects, including its use in crystal healing.” Yup, this is some bullshit.
• Page 45. Cymophobia is the abnormal fear of waves. This could be from Wi-FI to 5G to windmills to electric power lines to ocean waves.
• Page 93. At several points in the book, he references the old TV show Numb3rs that ran from 2005 to 2010. While the author has not watched a single episode, he did not care for the premise, but I somewhat fondly remember the show. It was ok, since it may have shown mathematicians as somewhat normal people.
• Page 127. “Realism comes in many flavors, which we will get to soon. Antirealism, on the other hand, says nope to all that shit. It also comes in many flavors, but generally it says that reality is not independent of who’s asking about it or that it really doesn’t matter since the question is irrelevant—like asking what a square tastes like.” Funny. Justin had written on a preschool project that something tastes like a triangle. Then we realized what he was talking about. We would cut up pancakes for breakfast, and some of the corner pieces were triangle shaped, and maybe those got hard after sitting for a while on his plate.
• Page 176. “It’s important not to ridicule people who believe in bullshit. Regardless of what you think about insults, and far be it for some asshole quantum physicist to lecture you about morality, the fact is, you can rarely change behavior by insulting someone’s intelligence. There is ignorance, and there is willful ignorance. Naive people who fall for bullshit deserve your sympathy, not your scorn. Go on, insult those amoral bullshitters all you want—you only want them to go away after all—but don’t insult Papa.” This is good advice. When people believe bullshit, telling them about the truth with facts will probably just make them retreat more into the bullshit. People just cling to closely held beliefs no matter what.
• Page 190. Introduced to the concept of the Great Filter by Robin Hanson. “The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare.” So, the universe has a way to filter out life from reaching a technological point where we could easily communicate with each other at the same time. The 1998 updated essay is here. I am also surprised that he did not mention the Dark Forest hypothesis.