John Polkinghorne's "Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction"

I was a bit disappointed in this book. I like the series of "very short introduction" books. They usually pick good authors -- Polkinghorne certain has the credentials -- who provide a text that is quite interesting and readable. This book didn't quite measure up.

The sections of the book that I very much liked were those that looked at interpretation of the theory, the history behind these viewpoints, and the presentation of alternatives.

Where I feel the book fell short was in presenting the quantum theory as physical description of the world. The math was bannished to an appendix. This was fine given that he presented the math in a perfunctory manner without the details required to make the material useful to a non-specialist. But that left only main body of the text to explain the theory. Here the material was too brief, too unmotived, too unillustrated to be useful to the general reader. The standard QT (Quantum Theory) ideas were present but not in a memorable, compelling, or insightful manner. I came away knowing nothing more about QT that before I read this book. (I did learn a bit of new material in the interpretation and philosophical sections, brief as they were.)

Polkinghorne is a recognized scientist specializing QT, so he knows his stuff. But after looking at his "further reading" section, I think I understand why the explanatory material fell flat. Apparantly he is not familiar with other writings on QT by popular science writers. Apparantly he is unaware or unexposed to writing styles that give the general reader a more compelling story, better techniques to make the concepts more approachable. The book didn't reward me for the reading since it didn't advance my understanding of QT.