Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution

Rovelli, Carlo; translated by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell

ISBN 10: 0593328884 / ISBN 13: 9780593328880

Published by Riverhead Books, New York, 2021

About this Item

Explication of QED, starting with Heisenberg's insight while on vacation in Helgoland; Rovelli is a respected Italian theoretical physicist & popular author. Small hardcover in jacket, as pictured; the first American edition (first printing), with full number string. Bump to base of spine, faint smudge to foreedge, else fine, clean, unmarked. Size: Duodecimo.

Seller Inventory # y0288

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution
• Publisher: Riverhead Books, New York
• Publication Date: 2021
• ISBN 10: 0593328884
• ISBN 13: 9780593328880
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Edition: First American Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • History of Science
  • First Editions
  • Physics

About this title

Synopsis

Named a Best Book of 2021 by the Financial Times and a Best Science Book of 2021 by The Guardian

“Rovelli is a genius and an amazing communicator… This is the place where science comes to life.” ―Neil Gaiman

“One of the warmest, most elegant and most lucid interpreters to the laity of the dazzling enigmas of his discipline...[a] momentous book” ―John Banville, The Wall Street Journal

A startling new look at quantum theory, from the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, and  Anaximander.

One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, he examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving.

Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution. Full of alarming ideas (ghost waves, distant objects that seem to be magically connected, cats that appear both dead and alive), quantum physics has led to countless discoveries and technological advancements. Today our understanding of the world is based on this theory, yet it is still profoundly mysterious.

As scientists and philosophers continue to fiercely debate the meaning of the theory, Rovelli argues that its most unsettling contradictions can be explained by seeing the world as fundamentally made of relationships rather than substances. We and everything around us exist only in our interactions with one another. This bold idea suggests new directions for thinking about the structure of reality and even the nature of consciousness.

Rovelli makes learning about quantum mechanics an almost psychedelic experience. Shifting our perspective once again, he takes us on a riveting journey through the universe so we can better comprehend our place in it.

About the Author

Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time. He has worked in Italy and the United States and currently directs the quantum gravity research group of the Centre de Physique Théorique in Marseille, France. His books, including Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, and Helgoland, are international bestsellers that have been translated into more than fifty languages.