Reading a book with “quantum mechanics” in the subtitle makes me feel smart. Especially smart. Possibly smarter than anyone around me. I noticed this unattractive effect while reading “The Black Hole War” on a long airline flight, when I caught myself sneering at the beach-book passenger in the next seat.
Deborah Blum is a professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of “Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death.”