This book has an interesting goal. It does not mean to discuss quantum mechanics in general but rather its consequences on the nature of reality. He uses this metaphysical goal as a frame for an introductory book on quantum mechanics. Thus, there is nothing necessarily unique about this books content. A seasoned physicist or even physics student will probably be familiar with all of the arguments made in the book. In fact, even the average reader of non-fiction science books about physics, cosmology, and astronomy will be familiar with most of the topics discussed in this book. However, this book touches on those topics with a special detail that many other authors gloss over. This detail shouldn’t scare the layman away; this book can be read without any prior mathematical or scientific knowledge. Herbert manages to capture the essence of detailed procedures (e.g., inner-product projections of quantum mechanical wave functions) by invoking very simple analogies (e.g., prisms that separate the colors of light). He also avoids esoteric terminology when constructing these analogies.

This is really a great book. The reader should expect to get a good introduction to quantum mechanics while also learning about the struggle to understand how strange space and time must be in order to justify our observations of the very small.

This book is definitely appropriate for the interested layman.