
Helgoland
Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution
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Narrated by:
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David Rintoul
About this listen
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 best-selling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and The Order of Time.
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 23-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.
©2020 Carlo Rovelli; translation 2021 Erica Segre and Simon Carnell (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“This entertaining and legible guide paints the history of quantum theory and lays out its possible meanings.” (Scientific American)
“Physicist Rovelli (The Order of Time) dazzles with this look at the 'almost psychedelic experience’ of understanding quantum theory.... These are big ideas, but Rovelli easily leads readers through the knotty logic, often with lyricism.... Readers who follow along will be left in awe.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
“Bracing and refreshing…Rovelli is offering a new way to understand not just the world but our place in it, too.” (NPR)
“Rovelli tackles both the quantum realm and the ways it helps us make sense of the mind with refreshing clarity.” (Anil Ananthaswamy, The New York Times Book Review)
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Story
Over two millennia ago, the prescient insights of Anaximander paved the way for cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology, and biology, setting in motion a new way of seeing the world. His legacy includes the revolutionary ideas that the Earth floats in a void, that animals evolved, that the world can be understood in natural rather than supernatural terms, and that universal laws govern all phenomena. In this elegant work, the renowned theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli brings to light the importance of Anaximander’s overlooked influence on modern science
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Father of Science
- By Darwin8u on 10-31-24
By: Carlo Rovelli
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The Order of Time
- By: Carlo Rovelli
- Narrated by: Benedict Cumberbatch
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most listeners, this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it appears. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where, at the most fundamental level, time disappears.
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Rovelli is a Genius
- By Mike on 05-11-18
By: Carlo Rovelli
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The Rigor of Angels
- Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: David Glass
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truth—that love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesn’t exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realm’s absurdity when he had his own epiphany—that there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality.
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The most ridiculous narration
- By Anonymous User on 03-07-24
By: William Egginton
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Something Deeply Hidden
- Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
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The Best Layperson Book on Quantum Physics
- By Conrad Barski on 09-11-19
By: Sean Carroll
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What Is Real?
- The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics
- By: Adam Becker
- Narrated by: Greg Tremblay
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation and dismissed questions about the reality underlying quantum physics as meaningless. A mishmash of solipsism and poor reasoning, Copenhagen endured, as Bohr's students vigorously protected his legacy, and the physics community favored practical experiments over philosophical arguments.
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Good, "light" "read"... potential caveat below...
- By James S. on 03-31-18
By: Adam Becker
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Quantum Enigma
- Physics Encounters Consciousness
- By: Bruce Rosenblum, Fred Kuttner
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics, the most successful theory in science and the basis of one-third of our economy. They found, to their embarrassment, that with their theory, physics encounters consciousness. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all this in nontechnical terms with help from some fanciful stories and anecdotes about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, emphasizing what is and what is not speculation.
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Wow. Very Informative and mind boggling.
- By Kevin Harper, Realtor on 08-11-17
By: Bruce Rosenblum, and others
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The God Equation
- The Quest for a Theory of Everything
- By: Michio Kaku
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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When Newton discovered the law of gravity, he unified the rules governing the heavens and the Earth. Since then, physicists have been placing new forces into ever-grander theories. But perhaps the ultimate challenge is achieving a monumental synthesis of the two remaining theories—relativity and the quantum theory. This would be the crowning achievement of science, a profound merging of all the forces of nature into one beautiful, magnificent equation to unlock the deepest mysteries in science: What happened before the Big Bang?
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Not what you may think
- By Anne85 on 04-11-21
By: Michio Kaku
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Complexity
- A Guided Tour
- By: Melanie Mitchell
- Narrated by: Kathleen Godwin
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In this remarkably clear and companionable audiobook, leading complex systems scientist Melanie Mitchell provides an intimate tour of the sciences of complexity, a broad set of efforts that seek to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals.
By: Melanie Mitchell
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Then I Am Myself the World
- What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It
- By: Christof Koch
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book's heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain and how this knowledge can be used to measure consciousness in natural and artificial systems.
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The Exciting Side of Science
- By Christi McAdams on 02-23-25
By: Christof Koch
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The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics
- By: Sean Carroll, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Original Recording
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In a field known for startling ideas, the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics may take the prize. It holds that parallel to our own world are a large number of other universes, almost identical to ours but with small variations. Copies of each of us inhabit a myriad of these worlds. But they are not us exactly; they share our past history, but they are different people who have unique futures. Although these realms are invisible and can’t communicate with each other, prominent physicists are convinced they must exist.
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Sean Carroll always has such amazing content
- By Amazon Customer on 12-26-23
By: Sean Carroll, and others
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The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality
- By: Don Lincoln, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Don Lincoln
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
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At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an equation that explained all physical reality - a theory of everything. Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Suitable for the intellectually curious at all levels and assuming no background beyond basic high-school math, these 24 half-hour lectures cover recent developments at the forefront of particle physics and cosmology.
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Audible’s Best Science Offering, A Gem
- By MikeB on 12-08-18
By: Don Lincoln, and others
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The Quantum Revelation
- A Radical Synthesis of Science and Spirituality
- By: Paul Levy, Jean Houston - foreword
- Narrated by: Paul Brion
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Written for those with no physics background, Paul Levy's latest book, The Quantum Revelation: A Radical Synthesis of Science and Spirituality, is for those who have heard that quantum physics is a fascinating subject but don't quite understand how or why.
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A fascinating and a frustrating read
- By Amazon Customer on 03-06-21
By: Paul Levy, and others
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Quantum Physics for Beginners, Into the Light
- The 4 Bizarre Discoveries You Must Know to Master Quantum Mechanics Fast, Revealed Step-By-Step (In Plain English)
- By: John Stoddard
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In this book, we will break through the confusion and reveal to you the most important ideas of quantum physics, told through the amazing true story of just four bizarre discoveries–many of which were made completely by accident!
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The audio book even has a commercial in it...
- By AjM on 11-26-23
By: John Stoddard
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The Quantum and the Lotus
- A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet
- By: Matthieu Ricard, Trinh Xuan Thuan
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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When Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Thuan met at an academic conference in the summer of 1997, they began discussing the many remarkable connections between the teachings of Buddhism and the findings of recent science. That conversation grew into an astonishing correspondence exploring a series of fascinating questions. Did the universe have a beginning? Might our perception of time in fact be an illusion, a phenomenon created in our brains that has no ultimate reality? What is consciousness and how did it evolve?
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The
- By willmit on 05-02-21
By: Matthieu Ricard, and others
What listeners say about Helgoland
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- C. Emerson Thompson
- 11-09-21
Short Listen, Non-Technical
But quite worthwhile. Gives interesting background on some of the greatest scientists of the 20th century
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- Timmy the G
- 01-31-22
very interesting
I knew next to nothing about quantum physics before listening to this book, and now I know something about it. There's a lot of philosophy weaved in this book about science, and that is new to me too. I will probably listen to this again sometime in the hopes of more fully understanding what the author is saying.
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- steph22
- 12-19-23
Exploring the wondrous world of quantum
Loved the journey. The author takes the listener on a thoughtful quest into quantum physics. It’s impossible to only listen to it once!
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- NYC mom
- 01-13-24
The Quantum Revolution "for poets"
Remember those college courses in math and science for non-majors (“poets”)? Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution is an exposition of the quantum revolution for someone more grounded in humanities than in the sciences or mathematics (the only way in which I qualify as a “poet”). I found Helgoland both challenging and entrancing.
While Rovelli gestures toward quantum theory’s significance outside the world of theoretical physics, he acknowledges and, in this layperson’s opinion, seems to take pains to avoid what has been called ‘Quantum BS”. He explains quantum theory as a mind-bendingly intriguing alternative view of reality to that provided by classic physics and several thousand years of cultural tradition. Nothing more, nothing less. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle had always seemed to me profound but basic. Now I begin to understand its radical consequences in terms of science and knowledge in general. And I finally understand the fuss about Schrödinger’s cat! The narrator is also superb.
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- Chuck
- 06-20-21
Fabulous!
As a retired engineer, I found this most insightful. I am rethinking my understanding of physics (quantum) as it was taught to me at university. Bravo!!!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Mike
- 08-27-21
Rovelli's Relational QM is Decisive
Finally, Carlo Rovelli has produced a popular version of material that has been available in more academic form for quite some time (as an entry in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Rovelli's seminal 1996 paper on arxiv.org, etc). This book is the coming out party of Relational Quantum Mechanics - the correct and definitive interpretation of QM.
One sentence summarizes the entire idea: "The joint properties of two objects exist only in relation to a third." When reading anything about QM, keeping this one mantra in mind clarifies the entire project.
For example, this clarifies entanglement. Specifically, the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment plays out in a very lucid way under Relational QM. In a system consisting of a quantum trigger and a cat, said system really is in a quantum superposition WITH RESPECT TO, say, me, an external observer. This is the joint properties (state) of this system in relation to me. But said joint properties can be different in relation to another entity, namely, the cat, which is indeed not in a superposition. In other words, the superposition really is ontic, but not from every perspective. This is as opposed to such things being epistemic - merely related to our knowledge of things. Quantum interference, Shor's Algorithm leveraging superposed True-False states in quantum computing... these are all very real things, but they do not exist absolutely, only from specific vantage points - their existence is relational. This is profound and truly is the best interpretation of QM.
I also appreciate Rovelli tackling the concept of "meaning" from an informational perspective, later in the book. This is a hot topic in information theoretic circles, e.g. recent papers by Artemy Kolchinsky and David Wolpert, etc., and even popular material c.f. Donald Hoffman. Clearly, Carlo Rovelli is the vanguard of humanity's best thinking here in the 21st century, and therefore will not be fully appreciated for decades yet to come.
A final note on the audio vs physical book. The physical book includes notes which are not reproduced here, and are important in that they often give the proper name to concepts discussed in otherwise romantic language, e.g. quantum decoherence. So do read the physical book and all its notes. But, this book is so short and the ideas so efficient and profound that it deserves additional readings, and these are quite nicely served by the audio book.
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- fenix d scully
- 06-30-21
The World is Stranger the We Know
Loved it! Entertaining and profound. It will be listened to again. It is a book that gives and gives.
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- Clemens Bauer
- 12-16-21
a wonderful fresh view on the quantum
Rovelli has taken me on a journey from the conception of quantum mechanics to one of the most interesting interpretations I have encountered and finally has sparked some thought about the relation on the mind/body issues giving also a bright and fresh new perspective! great great great
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- Nicholas
- 01-05-24
The stuff dreams are made on
Each book by Carlo continues to be more beautiful and captivating than the last. His writing consistently is able to reach inside my brain and scratch every itching question (pleasant imagery, I know). He combines my curiosity of physics with a deep poetic sense of what it is to be human/an observer. Onward I go to the next Carlo Rovelli book.
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- idamae
- 06-22-21
Brief, dense and riveting
I think Carlo Rovelli writes absolutely lyrical books about very technical topics in physics. To me, this book makes the most sense of what quantum physics may be “telling us” about the nature of the universe and consciousness. And he does so in a friendly, happy and accessible way. Just great.
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6 people found this helpful