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A review by mattbgold
Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution by Carlo Rovelli
2.0
I rank Rovelli's previous two books among my all-time favorites, each of them were powerhouses of conceptual abstraction and communication, expertly bridging the gap between the esoteric frontiers of contemporary theoretical physics and human intuition. This one though added nothing new to the conversation - the "relational interpretation" of quantum mechanics put forth here is barely given more than a single sentence description, I actually think this interpretation is better described in his 2014 book on quantum gravity: Reality is Not What it Seems. I also felt that the writing itself was awkward in places, particularly where he explains the "weirdness" of quantum mechanics (why not use the double-slit example?).
Perhaps the focus of the book was less on physics and more on philosophy, but the philosophy felt like scarcely more than a series of namedrops. Competing interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as the popular "many worlds" theory, were unfairly dismissed without dedicating more time to exploring exactly how quantum phenomena such as wave-function collapse are described from the perspective of the relational interpretation.
When compared to the author's earlier works this book seems rushed and a bit shallow. If Rovelli ever does write a serious book-length exploration/defense of the relational interpretation, like Sean Carrol did for many-worlds, I would be first in line to dive in.
Perhaps the focus of the book was less on physics and more on philosophy, but the philosophy felt like scarcely more than a series of namedrops. Competing interpretations of quantum mechanics, such as the popular "many worlds" theory, were unfairly dismissed without dedicating more time to exploring exactly how quantum phenomena such as wave-function collapse are described from the perspective of the relational interpretation.
When compared to the author's earlier works this book seems rushed and a bit shallow. If Rovelli ever does write a serious book-length exploration/defense of the relational interpretation, like Sean Carrol did for many-worlds, I would be first in line to dive in.