What is real?

Michael Redhead, a historian of science at the University of Cambridge, specialises in the philosophy of quantum mechanics – not, you might think, the cutting edge of science. But because the question of what is reality remains central to the concerns of both philosophers and physicists, these lectures published as From Physics to Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press, £19.95/$29.95, ISBN 0 521 47405 1) are interesting as a summary of the difficult ideas in both disciplines. Redhead belittles himself when, characterising his ideas as conventional, he describes himself as a “Cantabrigian dinosaur”.