by Richard Conn Henry, Nature, 436, 7 July 2005
reviewed by York Dobyns
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey, USA
A one-page essay can scarcely revolutionize science, but "The Mental Universe" is perhaps more impressive for its venue than for its content. Henry's piece carries forward a tradition in modern physics epitomized by the famous Jeans quote (which he cites): "... the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine." While Henry takes for granted the essential role of the observer and of mentality in the quantum-mechanical representation of the Universe, the physics community is far from consensus on this issue, and indeed still debates it hotly. Nonetheless, Henry's position is legitimate and well-argued. Advocacy for the essential role of consciousness and observers has not been popular in physics; its appearance in the staid pages of Nature is a landmark event.