The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World


The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World
Timothy J. Brennan

Citation: Physics Today 61, 2, 62 (2008); doi: 10.1063/1.2883913
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 An Introduction to Quantum Computing; Introduction to Quantum Information Science
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62 February 2008    Physics Today www.physicstoday.org

what a computer could do and
what resources would be
needed to do it seemed to be
largely independent of its
physical construction. The
connection between informa-
tion and physics, thermody-
namics in particular, has been
developed during the past
50 years or so. A famous ex-
ample of that relation was dis-
covered by Rolf Landauer, who in 1961
showed that erasing, or otherwise irre-
versibly losing, a bit of information in a
computer must dissipate at least kT ln2
of energy. 

That idea, now called Landauer’s
principle, was succinctly summarized
in his declaration that “information is
physical,” which has become a mantra
in the fields of quantum information
science and quantum computing. (See
Landauer’s article in PHYSICS TODAY,
May 1991, page 23.) We now know that
a computer that exploits the
unique features of quantum
mechanics can solve some
problems more efficiently
than any classical computer, a
result that firmly links com-
puter and information science
to physics. Quantum informa-
tion science, broadly defined,
has expanded enormously
over the past two decades, and
numerous books on the subject at all
levels have appeared, including Phillip
Kaye, Raymond Laflamme, and Michele
Mosca’s An Introduction to Quantum
Computing and Vlatko Vedral’s Introduc-
tion to Quantum Information Science. 

An Introduction to Quantum Comput-
ing covers a small subset of the topics in
Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang’s
Quantum Computation and Quantum In-
formation (Cambridge U. Press, 2000),
which has become a standard text in the
field. That tome, still relevant eight
years after its publication, is probably
too unwieldy for most undergraduates
looking for an introduction to the field.
In contrast, Kaye, Laflamme, and Mosca’s
book is very accessible. LaFlamme and
Mosca are on the faculty of the Institute
for Quantum Computing at the Univer-
sity of Waterloo in Canada and are well-
known researchers in quantum infor-
mation science; Kaye is a doctoral
student at the university. Based on a
course taught by the authors, the text is
tightly focused on quantum computing
and carefully leads the reader through
Deutsch’s, Shor’s, and Grover’s algo-
rithms, among others. Coupled with
the authors’ careful exposition is a cadre
of exercises, integrated into the text,
that forms an important pedagogical

aid. A series of exercises pre-
sented early in the book, for
example, guide the reader to
the existence of a universal set
of quantum gates. For better
or worse, in some places im-
portant results are simply de-
clared as theorems without
proof. 

The authors do an excellent
job breaking up Shor’s factor-

ing algorithm into pieces that students
can easily digest. They take the ap-
proach—not original, but deftly pre-
sented—of reducing the order-finding
problem at the heart of factoring to the
problem of finding the eigenvalues of a
unitary operator, delegating much of the
work to the reader through exercises.
The book contains a chapter on quantum
complexity that is more formal than the
rest of the text and may not appeal to
some readers. However, readers who
skip or skim that chapter will have little

trouble digesting the remain-
der of the text.  

Vedral’s Introduction to
Quantum Information Science is
billed as a graduate text but is
not really—it contains no ex-
ercises. Distilled from a series
of lectures by Vedral, a profes-
sor of quantum information
science at the University of
Leeds in the UK, it is a bit un-

even, both in the selection of topics and
style of presentation. Sometimes more
space is given to the algebra of a simple
example than to a fairly abstract proof. 

Most of the book focuses on quantify-
ing quantum entanglement, the author’s
primary current research field, and
quantum information by using entropic
measures. That approach pervades his
treatment of quantum computing, meas-
urement, and error correction. Formal
results are sometimes followed by clear
discussions of analogies to thermody-
namics. Error correction, for example, is
cast in terms of swapping quantum states
and entropy into environmental degrees
of freedom. The book is a good, technical
read, with many pithy or whimsical foot-
notes sprinkled throughout. Unfortu-
nately, Vedral’s text contains numerous
typographical errors and notational am-
biguities. Most are merely distracting,
but some may lead to real confusion. In
contrast, the few errors I found in Kaye,
Laflamme, and Mosca’s text are almost
entirely inconsequential.

Both An Introduction to Quantum
Computing and Introduction to Quantum
Information Science would benefit from a
stronger adherence to Landauer’s dic-
tum. If information is physical, discus-
sions of quantum information need to

be coupled with concrete examples of
physical implementations. Although
the fundamental results of quantum
information science depend on the logi-
cal structure of quantum mechanics—
unitary evolution in Hilbert space and,
perhaps, the projection postulate—and
not on any specific qubit implementa-
tion, neglecting experimental realiza-
tions is unwise. A novice reading Kaye,
Laflamme, and Mosca’s book, for ex-
ample, might reasonably reach the con-
clusion that if there is a universal set of
gates, clearly delineated quantum algo-
rithms, and error-correcting codes on
paper, then a large-scale quantum com-
puter should be just around the corner.
The reader should at least be given a
glimpse of the challenges involved in
making a robust controlled-NOT gate or
performing a complete Bell-state meas-
urement; both are primitives on the
quantum information theorist’s palette
but are challenging to perform in the
lab. The closest these books come to dis-
cussing experiments are brief mentions
of idealized Mach–Zehnder interferom-
eters. Remarkably, because of an algebra
mistake, Vedral gets that example
wrong—the photon exits the wrong
way from the symmetric interferometer. 

There is another, deeper reason ex-
periments in this field deserve more at-
tention. If researchers fail to construct
a large-scale quantum computer, it
may be because of some practical limi-
tation, or it may be the sign of some-
thing more interesting. A spectacular,
albeit speculative, possibility is that we
find quantum mechanics breaks down,
and there emerge some fundamentally
new laws of physics and, by extension,
of information. 

Jonathan R. Friedman
Amherst College

Amherst, Massachusetts

The Grid
A Journey Through the Heart
of Our Electrified World

Phillip F. Schewe
Joseph Henry Press, Washington,
DC, 2007. $27.95 (311 pp.). 
ISBN 978-0-309-10260-5

Electricity uniquely combines three at-
tributes: It is crucial, even for minimally
developed societies; fragile, in that pro-
hibitive storage costs require produc-
tion to equal use by the minute; and
interconnected, because failure of one
supplier to meet demand can black out
half a continent. In The Grid: A Journey
Through the Heart of Our Electrified
World, Phillip Schewe, chief science
writer at the American Institute of



February 2008    Physics Today 63

Physics, admirably
and accessibly por-
trays each of those
attributes. Special-
ists and general au-
diences should find
the book entertain-
ing, despite its oc-
casionally distract-
ing literary devices
and flourishes.

After some introduction, Schewe’s
tale begins in 1882 with the first grid,
powered by Thomas Edison’s DC gen-
erator at the Pearl Street station in New
York City’s lower Manhattan. Edison’s
company eventually lost out to George
Westinghouse’s AC system, which
could transmit power over longer dis-
tances by relying on transformers and
the AC generators and motors designed
by Edison’s former employee, Nikola
Tesla. The story fascinatingly turns to
another former Edison employee, the
now largely forgotten Samuel Insull,
who created the regulated utility sys-
tem that dominated the 20th century.
Schewe describes the growth of the grid
in Vladimir Lenin’s Russia and in
Franklin Roosevelt’s US, with particular
focus on the Tennessee Valley Author-
ity. Ironically, in attempting to contrast
the developments in Russia and the US,
he shows the unintended similarities
between centrally planned power and
publicly regulated and funded utilities. 

The most dramatic story comes next:
the 1965 Northeast blackout. To tell the
tale, Schewe melds stories from the
streets of New York City and the utility
control rooms. The power failure forced
industry and government to pay atten-
tion to reliability, just as fuel prices
started rising, environmental issues
gained traction, and competition began
intruding into Insull’s regulated monop-
oly legacy. The 2001 California energy
debacle of rolling blackouts and utility
bankruptcies is briefly covered; unfortu-
nately, the author focuses more on Enron
Corp rather than on California’s idiosyn-
cratic regulatory policy as the culprit.
Schewe then turns to alternatives to
giant, fossil-fuel plants, with a fair look at
the benefits and problems of solar, wind,
and nuclear power. After describing a
fascinating transformer-repair field trip
with Idaho Power, one of the high points
in the book, the author concludes with
observations on electrification in devel-
oping countries and on the similarities
between the Apollo moon landings and
the massive “Big Allis” generator that
provides power to New York City as
large-scale technological missions. 

If readers drawn to The Grid want to
learn more about whether competition

has led to improved performance or 
just higher prices or about global warm-
ing and conservation tips, they will
likely be disappointed. Technical and
policy experts may want more detail:
For example, nowhere in the book can
readers find an intuitive explanation of
“reactive power.” However, those
shortcomings ironically illuminate the
book’s strength—the focus on what it
takes to get this amazing, pervasive sys-
tem to work at all. 

One important minor flaw, likely
from a tight publication budget, is the
absence of graphics. The text lacks even

the standard “generator transmission
distribution user” diagram provided in
almost every other book about electric-
ity. A map and timeline of the 1965
blackout would help keep the story
straight, and power-pool maps would
show how grids go beyond boundaries
of not just individual power companies
but also states and countries. Photo-
graphs would also help attract a gen-
eral audience. I confess to wondering
what this Insull looked like.

The author may be more to blame for
the book’s peculiar organization. We
don’t find out how the grid works until

See www.pt.ims.ca/16297-19 APS Show—Booth #605, 607



64 February 2008    Physics Today www.physicstoday.org

the penultimate chapter, and the reader
won’t learn about kilowatt-hours, the
unit of energy most homeowners actu-
ally buy every month, until the final
chapter. Insull falls from grace in chap-
ter 3, but we don’t learn what happens
to him until the end of chapter 4. Florid
musings on the downside of technology
are liberally dropped throughout the
text graced with selected quotes from
Henry Adams and Henry David
Thoreau. Conservation is important, es-
pecially in the midst of global warming,
but the book would be stronger if that
topic were left to the end rather than in-
serted here and there.

Schewe’s baroque flourishes, Walden-
esque contemplation, and nonlinear or-
ganization suggest that he doubts that
readers share his fascination, and mine,
with electricity. The assumption is un-
derstandable. When I tell acquaintances
that I work on electricity economics,
“boredom squared” is in their eyes.
And I bet when Schewe told fellow din-
ner-party guests that he was working
on a book on electricity, it probably took
milliseconds for someone to interrupt
with “Anyone seen a good movie
lately?” Much of The Grid might offer
promising material for Hollywood pro-
ducers. I hope Schewe, also a dramatist,
is working on screenplays for the 1965
New York City blackout miniseries and
the Insull biopic. Those stories would
be worth seeing. 

Timothy J. Brennan
University of Maryland Baltimore County

Catonsville 

Iridescences 
The Physical Colors of Insects

Serge Berthier 
(translated from French 
by Capucine Lafait)
Springer, New York, 2007. $139.00
(160 pp.). ISBN 978-0-387-34119-4

Serge Berthier’s Iridescences: The Physical
Colors of Insects is purported to be a
“new, improved, and substantially
modified version” of his Les couleurs des
papillons ou l’impérative beauté: Propriétés
optiques des ailes de papillons, or The Col-
ors of Butterflies or Imperative Beauty: Op-
tical Properties of the Wings of Butterflies
(Springer, 2000). Berthier is a professor
of physics at the University of Paris
Diderot–7 and researches biological
structures, colors, and biomimetics at
Pierre and Marie Curie University. The
one positive aspect of Iridescences, orig-
inally published in French in 2003, is
that it does have wonderful color
photographs that show some amazing
detail of the structure and morphology

of the orders Coleoptera, which in-
cludes beetles, weevils, and fireflies,
and Lepidoptera, which includes but-
terflies and moths. 

Berthier’s book could have been a
very nice piece of work if it had been
proofread to correct the plethora of er-
rors in grammar, history, and references
to figures. For example, on page 3 in the
first chapter, the author refers to “Lord
Raleigh”—yes, with the last name mis-
spelled the same way each time the
physicist is mentioned—as fourth baron,
who was at Imperial College London,
which is correct. However, when most
physicists see the name “Lord Rayleigh,”
they think of the more famous Rayleigh,
John William Strutt, who was
third baron and taught at Cam-
bridge University. Berthier is
actually referring to Robert J.
Strutt, Lord Rayleigh’s eldest
son who inherited the title after
his father died in 1919. 

In chapter 2, Berthier takes
readers through plausible ar-
guments about the myriad of
color variations found in in-
sects, and in chapters 3 and 4 he focuses
on the different characteristic lengths of
scales of insect wings in both Coleoptera
and Lepidoptera. He then discusses in
chapter 5 how pigmentation and struc-
ture are responsible for most color vari-
ation. He introduces equation 5-1,
which shows how to get an interference
reflection minimum from a thin layer,
yet there is no figure or explanation as
to where the equation comes from; un-
less the reader is already familiar with
thin-film interference theory, the equa-
tion will mean nothing. 

Another repeated annoyance is that
the descriptions and labels of figures
are written in a mixture of French and
English. The labels in figure 11.3 are en-
tirely written in French while the figure
caption is written in English. In chapter
13, the author introduces the trichro-
matic coordinates R, G, B but then in
equation 13-3 uses normalized r, v, b co-
ordinates. One has to assume that the v
stands for “vert,” the French word for
“green.” In addition, many of the fig-
ures are poorly done. For instance,
figure 6.3, which shows the Fresnel re-
flection coefficient, has no scale for the
ordinate. It should also be noted that
the Fresnel formulas are not presented
until chapter 7. Also, in chapter 6, the
author introduces the Kramers–Kronig
relations, equation 6-7, that are incor-
rect as presented. 

In chapter 7, “1-Dimensional Struc-
tures: Interferences,” Berthier attrib-
utes the laws of reflection and refrac-
tion to both Willebrord Snel van Royen

and René Descartes. However, back in
figure 6.2 the law of refraction is called
Descartes’ law, and on page 90 in
chapter 8, “2-Dimensional Structures:
Interferences and Diffraction,” Berthier
refers to it as “Snell’s law.” But the law
of refraction was actually first discov-
ered by Thomas Harriot in 1602,
though that was not known until 1959.
Chapter 9, “3-Dimensional Structures:
Crystalline Diffraction,” deals with
periodicity in three dimensions.
Berthier introduces the Bragg relation,
equation 9-1, as 2d sinθ = kλ, in which
he uses k to represent an integer, an-
other hassle because we are used to
seeing k as the wave number. In the

sentence above the equation,
he refers to Φ as the angle to
be used in the equation,
which contains θ, not Φ. That
equation and the accompany-
ing figure 9.1 give no clue as
to why constructive interfer-
ence occurs. The author then
goes on to introduce a two-
dimensional Fourier trans-
form in equation 9-2, again

with no explanation.
In Chapter 10, “Amorphous Struc-

tures: Scattering,” Berthier discusses
the concept of larger-size particle scat-
tering within the framework developed
by Gustav Mie in 1908. The author later
gives credit for the first development to
Ludwig Lorenz; however, although
Lorenz developed the theory in 1890, he
only published his research in Danish.
Most people today give credit to both
men and refer to the Lorenz–Mie the-
ory. Berthier then ties the theory to the
scattering structures found in certain
butterflies, which allows readers to
understand the insects’ color variation.
Chapter 11 treats selective absorption
and some of the chemistry necessary to
explain it. 

I found chapter 12, on thermoregu-
lation and spectral selectivity in butter-
flies, quite informative; it explained
how essential heat transfer is to the sur-
vival of those marvelous insects. In the
final chapter, 13, “Vision and Colorime-
try,” the author uses trichromatic coor-
dinates to explain insect vision. He
briefly discusses the perception of po-
larized light by insects but does not
mention the enormous amount of work
already published on the subject. 

In short, if you are looking for a
book that offers some understanding of
the relationship between the basic laws
of physics and the coloring of insects,
Iridescences leaves much to be desired.
On the other hand, if you want to see
some wonderful photographs that
show the intricate and delicate struc-