Helgoland

byCarlo Rovelli, Erica Segre (Translator), Simon Carnell (Translator), David Rintoul (Read by)

The Sunday Times bestseller

In June 1925, twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg, suffering from hay fever, retreated to a small, treeless island in the North Sea called Helgoland. It was there that he came up with one of the most transformative scientific concepts: quantum theory.

Almost a century later, quantum physics has given us many startling ideas - ghost waves, distant objects that seem magically connected to each other, cats that are both dead and alive. At the same time, countless experiments have led to practical applications that shape our daily lives. Today our understanding of the world around us is based on this theory. And yet it is still profoundly mysterious.

In this enchanting book, Carlo Rovelli, one of our most celebrated scientists, tells the extraordinary story of quantum physics and reveals its deep meaning: a world made of substances is replaced by a world made of relations, each particle responding to another in a never ending game of mirrors.

Shifting our perspective once again, Rovelli takes us on a riveting journey through the universe so we can better understand our place in it.
With the publication of his million-selling book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Rovelli took his place with Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman as one of the great popularisers of modern theoretical physics
Sam Leith, Spectator

About Carlo Rovelli

Carlo Rovelli is an internationally acclaimed writer whose books, including Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time and Helgoland, have been number one bestsellers around the world and translated into over forty languages. As a theoretical physicist, he has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time and he is currently directing the quantum gravity research group of the Centre de physique théorique in Marseille, France.
Details
  • Imprint: Allen Lane
  • ISBN: 9780241508947
  • Length: 271 minutes
  • Price: £13.00
All editions