For Joe Stirt, his daughter's struggle to survive the first few months of life forces him and his wife to view the hospital at which they work from the patient's point of view. For the reader, this book is a look into some of the true ins and outs of the medical profession. Foremost in all of this, however, is the stinging reality that their daughter's life, teetering on the brink of collapse, is not in their hands.

For anyone whose loved ones must pay the hospital a visit, this book is a must-read account of what strings one father and mother pull to try to save the life of their premature baby daughter. And for those familiar with the medical profession, this story is a humbling awakening to attitudes and practices of the medical profession from the patient's standpoint.

Stirt's flowing style and unfeigned suspense makes Baby impossible to put down. I recommend this book to all readers.

This book is a masterpiece. Dr. Stirt gives a wonderful portrayal of a parent with a critically ill child.His heartfelt comments interspersed with the medical record is a marvelous touch that I have never seen before. I only hope that someday he continues his writing career.

This book is billed as "A guide to quantum living in the 21st Century." As a guide, it will assuredly lead you down a garden path.

This is a slim book of aphorisms by author Joseph Stirt, MD. At first glance, the short paragraphs look deep and meaningful. But then we find the assertion that "something can simultaneously exist and not exist"--a reference to the Schroedinger's Cat Paradox, where a cat is placed in a box (the system) and may or may not have been killed by a device triggered by a nuclear decay event. The cat is in an "indeterminant state" until someone converts the system to determinant by interacting (interfering) with the system to see if the cat has expired.

This is a real misunderstanding of the principal of uncertainty in that you cannot specify the exact state of a particle without somehow interacting with it. It describes a paradox of quantum physics, but in NO WAY is the cat neither dead or alive in reality. Things don't exist and not exist simultaneously, and encouraging people to believe this leads to fuzzy thinking.

There's more of this gobbledygook written here. My advice: don't take this as wisdom or even a short discussion of physics. There is one excellent sentence, however in here: "You can make more money; you cannot make more time." Absolutely true and can be illustrated that if you buy this book, you can recoup your loss financially by reselling it to some unsuspecting reader, but you won't get back the minutes wasted reading it.

Joseph A Stirt, M.D. uses quantum mechanics (the final mathematical formulation of the quantum theory, a theory of the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and other physical systems that are subject to the uncertainty principle) to interpret life.

The quantum theory and the theory of relativity form the theoretical basis of modern physics. The quantum theory was developed over a period of thirty years through the efforts of many scientists.

While, Newtonian physics helps describe the orbit of the planets, quantum physics describes how electrons surround the nucleus of an atom and other subatomic actions. Atoms and subatomic particles are not solid, they are clouds of energy.

Electrons don't orbit like planets, instead they form blurred clouds around the nucleus. The nucleus is made of protons and neutrons also known as hadrons. Hadrons are made up of three smaller particles called quarks that are "glued" together by tiny particles called "gluons."

According to old theories, energy was treated as a continuous phenomenon, while matter occupies a very specific region of space. In quantum theory, energy is emitted and absorbed in tiny amounts. An individual bundle of invisible energy called a "quantum" behaves in some situations like a particle of matter.

In 1924, Louis de Broglie proposed that not only do light waves sometimes exhibit particle like properties, as in the photoelectric effect and atomic spectra, but particles may also exhibit wavelike properties.

The light given off or absorbed by an atom has certain frequencies (wavelength). The quantum theory shows that those frequencies correspond to definite energies of the light quanta, or "photons." The electrons of the atom can only have certain allowed energy values and when an electron changes from one level to another, a quantum of energy is emitted OR absorbed whose frequency is directly proportional to the energy difference between the two levels.

After the discovery of the nuclear atom by Rutherford in 1911, the quantum theory was used to explain atomic structure and atomic spectra, showing the connection between the electrons' energy levels and the frequencies of light given off and absorbed.

The uncertainty principle places an absolute, theoretical limit on the combined accuracy of certain pairs of simultaneous, related measurements. The accuracy of a measurement is given by the uncertainty in the result. If a measurement is exact, the uncertainty is zero. However, only one of a pair of quantities can be measured precisely. The value of the other must remain unknown.

Perhaps Joseph A Stirt is a quantum mechanics philosopher who believes we live in two worlds.

There are things that happen in the quantum world that he would consider "supernatural." Have you ever thought about particles existing and not existing at the same time or a hundred trillion neutrinos whistling through your body every second.

Neutrinos are similar to the more familiar electron, however they are electrically neutral! Their spin is also always oriented in the direction opposite to their velocity.

F. Reines said Neutrinos are "... the most tiny quantity of reality ever imagined by a human being".

With Neutrinos flying through us can we really believe reality is as "concrete" as we perceive it to be?

By creating this book, the author is not attempting to be intellectual, but rather he is making an attempt to make sense of life. He is encouraging the reader to take hold of the idea that great forces have a part in our lives and that if we could somehow tap into this force, our lives would be more interesting.

This book is a collection of quotes discovered by the author over the last 40 years. If you want to find a source, you can look it up in the Notes. I would almost have preferred to see the source next to the quote, however that might have broken up the thought patterns. So you must let the words flow into your mind like little neutrinos without a home.

His inspiration comes from many sources including:

The Age of Spiritual Machines by R. Kurzweil

The Holographic Universe by M. Talbot

Physics and Philosophy by W. Heisenberg

You may want to start reading some of the works he lists in the Notes. They
do seem rather intriguing.

"In a general sense, I'm trying to make some sense of things." - Joseph A. Stirt, M.D.

The first quote in the book says: "Only the incomprehensible is worth understanding."

How can you not love this book? This is a quote from "Only the Incomprehensible" by T. Parks, "Destiny" 2000

I was immediately INTRIGUED.

While reading the quotes, you might want to highlight the books/articles they come from and then do further study. There is space in the back of the book to write in your own thoughts. Perhaps at some point the author will include not only a few pages on his own life, but also a section explaining his research.

This book will spin your mind in circles in some places and that is a good thing. We need inspiration, we need to think about deeper issues than what we are going to wear, eat or watch on TV.

I love complex sentences or word puzzles that I call "mind boggles." This book has plenty of "mind boggles" to entertain you for weeks on end.

Here are is one to entertain you:

"Decoherence must cause the universe to somehow split in two, spawning this world and another parallel "mirror world."

(Decoherence describes the regular interactions between an object and its environment. A set of interactions that allows concrete behaviors to emerge from the possibilities quantum theory allows.)

In a world where reading books just to find quotes takes valuable time away from other pursuits, this book gives you a taste of all the intellectual deserts in regards to quantum physics. It will also make you do your own research in order to understand scientific theories.

Honestly, you don't have to be a scientist to enjoy this book, you must only be willing to "imagine."

Intellectually Decadent.

Take a facile mind and let it play with the dichotomy between the quantum state and the macro universe - throw in a dash of Twain & Bierce and Darwin & Escher and you have Quantations. A slim book with many big ideas.

Well worth the price and a fun read.