Helgoland is a small Danish Island (pair of islands) where Werner Heisenberg went to try to sort out the basic tenets of quantum physics, and in the description of Helgoland as a book I thought I was going to get a more biographical travelogue, trying to tie together the geography of the place with the outlandish ideas at the heart of Quantum physics. Rovelli tries that for a few pages but is well away of the problem at the heart of the book, that no-one really understands Quantum Physics, not even a lot of the people who do it. So how do you tell a story about something people find fiendishly difficult to understand? You try to explain it again.

Helgoland is a fascinating stab at making a laymans guide to quantum physics, but it is clear early on that Rovelli has greater ambitions than that, He doesn't just want to explain quantum physics, he has a particular take on it to pimp, one which discards possible worlds, and superimposition of probability fields and instead relies on a relational description of the world. Does it help that he also reaches for a Buddhist text to back this up, probably not but by the time we get to his model you're three quarters of the way through the book and you want to see how it pans out. It pans out pretty well to be fair, my old Philosophy Of Science brain clicked into place, followed by the metaphysician and sceptic in me and whilst he never goes as far as Penrose did regarding quantum physics as the secret to where consciousness lies, he extrapolates a bold theory. Quantum physics is the science of relationship, the observer affects the outcome because everything is an observer. An electron with nothing to act in relation too might as well not exist. This drags back to s pretty familiar philosophical idea,if a tree falls in a wood and no-one is there, does it make a sound. But here the observe does not need to be active, it just needs to be something else that is affected, another atom, the space around it. People are special observers, with out microscopes but being part of a network of relationship describes the universe.

As a theory (model) I can't say that it necessarily solves the quantum physics description problem, and any philosophy of science stab at describing the "real world" that doesn't appear to have "things" in it initially always feels suspect. It also could be that his description - the "real world is the information described within this network of relationships" is potentially axiomatic, that is what it means to exist (there are parallels here with number theory definitions which sounds clunky, but is just retrofitting a clever description on something we instinctively understand). Either way I was given a good work out and I do now understand quantum physics a bit more. Maybe I would have liked a bit more of a blow by blow of Heisenberg on the island (though I was lucky enough to see Heisenberg played my Mark Strong in a very dodgy wig a few days later). I think Rovelli sometimes expects the reader to go along with him on both the science and his own conjecture, and that doesn't always work, but its skilfully done and since the history of scientists dabbling for answers in Buddhist philosophy is poor, more convincing than most.

Readable physics. When Rovelli says that even the physicists don't understand it, what chance do we have. However, he does make it interesting and his enthusiasm shines through. Even though theories change, it's amazing what was 'discovered' in the early 20th century without computers and electron microscopes. Still don't understand Schrödinger's cat.

I loved Rovelli's last book and was really excited to see Helgoland was coming out and it did not disappoint! His writing is so mind-expanding and Helgoland was everything I hoped it would be.

Rovelli is the master of weaving dense concepts of physics with sentiment, philosophy, nostalgia and clear, everyday thinking.

This latest book covers the discovery of quantum theory and its history to date. Expect expositions on Shcrodingers cat, objects as events and the nature of perception itself.

Rovelli covers a lot of ground and does with a deft touch that makes extremely difficult concepts almost reachable to the lay person.

The Helgoland of the title is a bit of romantic licence, yes the book does cover the time that Hesienberg spent on the island and how he first scratched away at the substratum of knowledge that would lead to quantum theory but, the book is not a biography of Heisenberg. Rather, it covers his initial efforts then breezes through others who carried the torch (Bohrs, Schrodinger et al.).

That said, this book is an interesting read and some sections will simply blow your mind as alternative explanations are provided for the nature of perception, quantum interference the correlations between objects and the theory that objects do not exists, they are, rather, nodes in a dense web of interactions and events.

Its heady stuff but, as Rovelli ably explains, the esoteric and way, way out theories, are increasingly being found to hold water when the thorny issue of quanta is dealt with.

This is probably the closest that we will come to an accessible read on quantum theory and for that, Rovelli should be proud of this book.

This is a book for those with a deeper knowledge of the Quantum environment than I possess. I have a background in the more physical or material aspect of physics and mathematics so I imagined this would broaden my knowledge of Quantum world. The book began well enough then started to quote references to the more physiological and theoretical aspects of Quantum physics that quite frankly lost me. I could relate to the atomic level descriptions early on then the shift to the theoretical world needed a more expansive thought process that I obviously lack. That said, I enjoyed the book that I would characterize as a technical reference more than the layman’s guide to the Quantum world, that I will happily leave to history and to those today who possess ‘brains the size of planets’.

I have read and loved Rovelli's 'Reality is Not What it Seems' book on quantum gravity, and find quantum physics in general absolutely fascinating. I don't come from a science background but love reading popular science books, especially anything to do with physics and all of life's mysteries.

I'd been really looking forward to Helgoland and it was certainly a journey! I savoured Rovelli's descriptions and he has a lovely, accessible way of describing things that would otherwise be incomprehensible to someone like me. My only issue with the book was that it felt less scientific and much more philosophical. I understand the links between the two disciplines, especially when it comes to theories of life as critical but baffling as quantum physics. However a lot of it really went over my head and I couldn't quite make sense of the book's purpose (perhaps that's the point though?). I'm just not used to that feeling after reading a science book so it left me a bit perturbed.

A lot of this is obviously personal, and it is a truly lovely and fascinating book. It's just not quite what I expected.

The premise is romantic: a genius contemplating the universe on a windswept island. On Helgoland, Werner Heisenberg started to construct the theory of quanta. The book is not about Helgoland, nor much about Heisenberg’s stay there, however: it provides a point of embarkation from which we journey into a meditation on quantum physics.
I started reading with not a little trepidation. I have a science background but one which deals with macromolecules not subatomic particles. However, Carlo Rovelli’s writing style (and the excellent translation by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell) is immediately engaging and makes a potentially bewildering subject accessible. He knows how to tell a story. He also sets the reader at ease: nobody fully understands quanta, so don’t worry!
I found Heisenberg’s youth astonishing – he was just 23 when he went to Helgoland to escape pollen and contemplate this mystery. The concentration of talent working on the enigmas of the atom in 1920s is mind-boggling in itself: Neils Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Erwin Schrödinger to name just a few. You must be doing something extraordinary if it has Einstein in suspense.
The writing is simple yet beautiful. Even when, by Rovelli’s own admission, he digresses, it’s interesting; the portrait of Bogdanov is a case in point. It was a good idea to put the material intended for those who are familiar with quantum physics at the back of the book as notes: it makes the main narrative flow better for a non-specialist reader and makes it a manageable length, shortened further by the pace of the writing. My need to revisit passages is a function of the complex ideas not the complex language. Here, theoretical physics is presented as philosophy, as a creative endeavour, science providing ‘a vision of reality, a conceptual framework for thinking about things’. Even if you don’t think physics is your thing, give this a try and accept that it’s OK not to understand everything – that’s a pretty good attitude to life.

Rovelli is one of those writers who, like any good teacher, is able to make you understand a difficult subject in the moment but - days later - it's completely gone out of my head! So it goes with his latest physics book which explains (yet again) quantum physics. I want to say I found this one as enjoyable as his previous ones but I just wasn't engaged with the people in the book and the lessons they had to say. Quantum physics is so abstract it just feels like the people involved are crazy and making it up as they go along.

A beautifully written (maybe over-written) story about the development of quantum theory. QT is very difficult if not impossible to get your brain around (well, my brain anyway)! Despite having studied it at university 60 years ago, I can sort of understand the practical application (transistors, lasers, atomic weapons) and apply that to using these devices (atom bombs excepted) in real world situations, but the implications of the theory are still obscure.
If you are looking for a clear explanation this is not the book in which to find it. Perhaps there isn't one, in which case simply enjoy the story, beautifully told, and this book will do just that.

And I have since bought this book for my grandsons!

I have chosen to read a few books on the subject of quantum mechanics in recent years in the hope of finding one that makes the subject understandable to me. Carlo Rovelli’s Helgoland is the closest I have found so far. It’s still such a complex topic that I get so far and feel like my brain has gone into overdrive but his explanations of theories and concepts is the best I have come across to date. I plan to read it again, and possible a few more times, in the hope of understanding a little more each time.

Rovelli does a good job of bringing alive the key mathematicians and physicists involved in the birth of quantum mechanics. I really enjoyed learning about the connections and who influenced who and it inspired me to read more about some of these great scientists such as Paul Dirac, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck (his personal story is heart breaking), Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Max Born (interestingly the grandfather of Olivia Newton John whose autobiography I read recently).

This is a book about the concepts and people involved with few of those bewildering mathematical equations that books on this topic often have. I didn’t understand it all on first reading but will persevere and I commend it as a good book to read if you wish to get a grip, however loose, on this mind blowing topic.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Press for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Quantum physics is substantial to understanding everything from astrophysics to biology and without it, modern technology would not exist. Therefore, anyone and everyone should aim to understand it in rudimentary terms.

Carlo Rovelli makes quantum physics accessible to people who are fascinated by physics but have little prior knowledge. Beginning with Werner Heisenberg’s famous visit to the island of Helgoland and his conception of the idea of an atom’s mathematical structure, Rovelli illustrates how this shift in thinking about atoms influenced theories by Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger and Paul Dirac, as well as our understanding of probability and uncertainty in the world. Simplifying complex topics, Rovelli manages to explain quantum theory and other mainstream theories of physics in a very informative, but never dry manner.

While the book is mostly focused on science, Rovelli takes philosophical discourses into the philosophy of science, of physics and of quantum theory. For instance, he shows how the philosophical perspective of empiriocriticism connects the philosopher Ernst Mach to Alexander Bogdanov, a political rival of Lenin, to Albert Einstein and to Werner Heisenberg.
I enjoyed the interdisciplinary nature of the book, which is certainly very thought-provoking and definitely worth rereading. I look forward to discussing it with other members of my book club next month.

The book is incredibly interesting, well-written and easy to follow. I was not a big fan of physics in school (no one in my year was) due to my awful teacher. Still, the fascination - though lack of understanding - remained. Carlo Rovelli is the physics teacher everyone would have wished for. We would certainly have more physicists in the world if more teachers taught physics in such an accessible way.

Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physics researcher and has published several other books.

Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Press U.K. and Carlo Rovelli for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ah, what a gem of a book on such a fantastic topic - Quantum Physics! Carlo Rovelli really did a fantastic job on writing this.

Helgoland opens with a fantastic walk through quantum history, explaining the important landmarks, stop throughs and notable names attached to quantum theory.

It’s fantastically written and I really love reading about the world of Quantum and all it’s mind bending peculiarities and this book really captured that. It captures the magic, the sense of a ground breaking theory that will shake the world and you certainly feel it through the excitement of the scientists at the time who are standing on the precipice of an amazing discovery.

The book is fab in laying down the foundations of quantum physics too, from the main concepts (such as superposition and entanglement) to the different theories and ways of thinking within this subject. I know I keep saying it was well written, but it really is! It doesn’t feel like a wordy slog but a highly comprehensible (well, as comprehensible as anything quantum can be. It’s still confusing and dribble-worthy but that’s not the authors fault!) and a fantastic account of the quantum world with a hearty dose of philosophy thrown in.

I found the chapter on ‘relations’ so interesting as well as the draws upon philosophy and a dip into neuroscience with the Mind- body problem and concepts of reality. So many intriguing topics covered here.

I always leave these kind of books with a sense of awe and wonder, as this topic is truly and deeply mind boggling. It’s a definite recommended read for all of those fond of physics with a yearning to learn more quantum, and even though I’m a biologist (with a deep love of astrophysics), it’s a topic I’ll always love to read. Helgoland was certainly no disappointment!

Helgoland is a startling and fascinating new look at quantum theory, from the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and The Order of Time. Helgoland is a bare, treeless island in the North Sea where the twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, in June 1925, 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. One of the world's most renowned and prominent 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.

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. This book not only reconstructs, with formidable clarity, the adventurous and controversial growth of quantum theory, making its crucial passages evident, even for those who ignore it, but it is inserted into a new vision, where a world made up of substances, a world made up of relationships is replaced, which respond to each other in an inexhaustible game of mirrors. A vision that leads us to explore, in an amazing perspective, fundamental questions still unresolved, from the constitution of nature to that of ourselves, which we are part of nature. It is a scintillating read but make no mistake, while it is accessible to the non-scientifically trained, it requires focus and you may often find yourself having to re-read parts in order to fully grasp what's been said. Rovelli takes some of the most complicated concepts and presents them in such an intelligible, crystal clear and eminently readable fashion that you cannot fail to find the book engrossing. I was also very pleasantly surprised that there was laugh-out-loud humour interspersed throughout and that I struggled with putting it down. An information-rich, compelling and thought-provoking read; it really has you considering your place in this vast universe, human existence and the nature of reality. Highly recommended.

There are books that leave me wondering about the topics they discuss long after I finished flipping the last page of them. The lesson of Hegel about Nachdenken (“thinking after the fact to be thought about”), is unconsciously integrated into me after reading this book. Helgoland is one such book, filled with interesting discussions that interwoven the recurring themes of relations between science and philosophy. It goes into length in the discourse that quantum theory with contribution mainly from Werner Heisenberg is an important element in rethinking the roles of mankind in this world, and to describe simply “there is so much we still don’t know about in this world”.

Carlo Rovelli is a physicist who is not afraid to read between the lines of his contemporaries and occasionally returns to the comfort of classical works to explain the unexplainable. Through his discourses, he at first introduces us to the significance of the works of the physics boys of Göttingen, Heisenberg and other protégés of Max Born in describing the phenomenon of the quantum theory whose foundation has been laid out previously by Danish physicist Niels Bohr. Niels Bohr created a model of the atom that shows the movement of the atom that orbits around the atom’s nucleus. The Bohr model worked well for hydrogen, but could not explain more complex elements. It was in Helgoland while recovering from asthma that the twenty-three years old Werner Heisenberg got his aha moment to explore atomic behaviour using a different mathematical model called matrix mechanics.

The significance of this simple finding is a game-changer in the field. Heisenberg argued that we can only speak of the knowledge as numbers in tables that describe something about particles, but we could never truly see the particles as they are. “Science no longer confronts nature as an objective observer, but sees itself as an actor in this interplay between man and nature,” said Heisenberg. Throughout the end of each chapter and sub-chapter, Carlo Rovelli keeps us wondering about the question of “the importance of observing the atom” during the experiment of Heisenberg. What does atom care about whether we are observing it or not, was my question at that time. But it was through the simple act of ‘observing’, that there is this change of paradigm in how we interpret nature. “Everything is interrelated and relative to other beings,” is a conclusion that I could draw through various examples presented in this book, something which I concur will baffle Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein who tried to explain the strange aspects of Heisenberg’s finding on quantum mechanics.

This short book is interesting mainly from two aspects. First of all, it is accessible for all readers from the way Carlo Rovelli employs simple phrases and vernaculars to explain physics to lay people who at least have a high-school-level of understanding physics. It explains several interesting findings on quantum mechanics in the twentieth-century in simpler terms without discounting the essentials. At least, there are not too many equations that discourage lay readers. Second, it is rich with interdisciplinary discourses. The author could draw parallels of the concept introduced by Heisenberg in works across discipline such as the debates between Lenin and Bogdanov regarding materialism, as well as much much older stanzas of Nāgārjuna from the second century B.C.

It’s a subversive idea, yet leaves me pondering long after reading it about the nature of our consciousness and what makes us different from other beings. And it reminds me more that we as humans have long forgotten that we are part of nature. We observe, yet at the same time, we are also parts of what we observe. There is a paradox of this understanding, and we could only think of it as a way to collectivised knowledge that we acquired throughout the ages (or in Bogdanov words, ‘organising’ them). And this is why the politics of collaboration is much more effective than the politics of competition. It is so easy to get lost in between various biases created by our previously-acquired knowledge, and not see the world as it is. Seeing is knowing.

If, like me, you have a sketchy knowledge of the laws of physics (at best) but you’re intrigued by the principles, this is absolutely the book for you. Its conversational and humorous style breaks down seemingly incredibly complex aspects of quantum theory and mechanics into manageable and understandable theories. I particularly like the use of anecdotes from everyday life to illustrate these concepts, making it easier to visualise what the physicist was trying to achieve.

I have always been quite wary of navigating the world of physics with its own language and in depth constructs, but this was a fantastic read. In part 3 of the book the author considers breakthroughs in quantum theory alongside then-current theories on religion, politics and philosophy, and this really brings alive the scientific concepts within the context of the time. Highly recommended!

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for an advance copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.