Clocking in at over 600 pages, Jean Paul Corriveau’s A Personal Journey into the Quantum World is an ambitious examination of a number of scientific ideas, including the relationships between time, matter, space, light and motion; gravitation; dark matter; and the origins of the universe. Yet, Corriveau is less concerned in presenting a straight-ahead examination of these principles than in laying a cosmological foundation in order to discuss the author’s theories on the afterlife, consciousness, ghostly phenomena, and ultimately, God. For the author, God is never far from the realm of science and reveals His presence in “very subtle ways” in the world of quantum mechanics.
From the Enlightenment to the end of the 19th century, the mixing of God and science would have been shot down by many thinkers who assumed that all that existed could only be ascertained through experiments of the physical world. But in the last century, the idea that quantum physics may serve as a way of scientifically understanding the nature of God has become familiar territory, with a number of theorists–from physicists like Joel Primack, and Henry Stapp, to spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra–offering their take on the topic.
Corriveau’s book is intelligent and well written, and he does his best to make the ideas and mathematics accessible for readers. However, it’s difficult to determine who his audience is. The book is a little too advanced to serve as an introduction to quantum theory, yet the topics covered are a little too well-trodden to offer much new insight for the scientific community. Moreover, the book lists no bibliography and is not footnoted, both of which are essential, even in a personal work like this. In order for it to be recommended to libraries and science readers, it would need some kind of scientific imprimatur from a few noted authorities.
In sum, while the book is a prodigious accomplishment for the author, it’s hard to imagine how it will find a niche in the very crowded arena of modern scientific thought.
Also available in hardcover and ebook.
