Bananaworld

What if all you needed to know to understand quantum mechanics was how to peel a banana? This book offers a new approach to the mysteries of quantum theory that doesn't use a lot of math or confusing talk about cats being alive and dead. Instead it examines the underlying puzzle of quantum phenomena: the correlated behavior of separated systems. Focusing on these correlations, described in terms of quantum information, has become common in physics journals, but in this book the discussion is simplified. Instead of using abstract 'boxes' with correlations between inputs and outputs, this book uses an everyday object that you know well - a simple banana - and asks you to imagine what the world would be like if how a banana tasted depended on how you peeled it. Comparing this Bananaworld to our own world highlights exactly what is (and what isn't) bizarre about our quantum universe, and illustrates the novel thesis that quantum mechanics is really about the structure of quantum information. What we have discovered is that the possibilities for representing, manipulating, and communicating information are very different than we thought.