"[W]hile we scientists know how to use [quantum physics]... [w]e dont know what its telling us about the fundamental nature of reality. It is into that chasm that... Rovelli leaps with his new book Helgoland. ...Rovelli is one of the worlds leading theoretical physicists. He is also a lyrical writer whose previous bestsellers have offered beautiful meditations on "the adventure of science." ...What quantum mechanics is teaching us, Rovelli says, is that reality is a vast net of interactions where there are no things, only relationships. ...Helgoland is not... a book to learn quantum mechanics from. ...Rovelli is offering a new way to understand not just the world but our place in it ..."
Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy, the United States, France, and Canada. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the Centre de Physique Théorique of Marseille in France, a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute, core member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy of Western University in Canada, and Fractal Faculty of the Sa
"... theoretical physics is less clean than the way its usually solved. You can always change parameters and save yourself. ... its very rare that theories are ruled out by just an experiment or a group of experiments. Theories usually come with flexibility. Theoreticians can add flexibility. And so new experiments — you can just patch up your theory."
"The landscape is magic, the trip is far from being over."
"I think that physics is about escaping the prison of the received thoughts and searching for novel ways of thinking the world, about trying to clear a bit the misty lake of insubstantial dreams, which reflect reality like the lake reflects the mountains."
"[I]n a fundamental description of nature we must "forget time"... this can be done in the classical and in the quantum theory."
"An overly pragmatic attitude is not productive in the long run."
"Hawking was one of the good physicists of his generation, not the universal genius the popular press has depicted. It is a pity, because this confusion fogs the memory of a remarkable man."