Sometimes it’s difficult to get to the bottom of things. We yearn to discover simple answers to enigmatic questions. And theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli gently shows us why that doesn’t really work … and … perhaps that wasn’t the right question to begin with.
Carlo’s story is anchored around Werner Heisenberg’s moments of quantum reckoning whilst on the windswept, surf-scarred rocky island of Helgoland in the North Sea. That was a hundred years ago, in 1925. But casting off from those dangerous shores, Carlo Rovelli takes us on a fascinating tour of science and philosophy which ends up at the beginning of an amazing revelation, linking quantum mechanics to Buddhism and the relationship of all things.
National Science Week 2025 celebrated the tiny world of the quantum realm and I chose to re-read Carlo Rovelli’s Helgoland as part of my personal celebrations. If I get round to reading this book again in a couple of years, I know I will still find more twisting treasures. Rich gems that are interpreted both philosophically and theoretically. Within the pages of this book, my quantum ignorance melts away into a warm friendly feeling where I can safely and poetically dive below the frustrations of Heisenberg’s exasperatingly challenging Helgoland rocks. Take a deep breath and join me!
One Hundred Quantum Years by Celia Berrell
Are we not like children still?
Curious to know what’s inside?
Inside the wrapping paper of a gift;
inside the heart of a treasured friend;
inside the mind of someone admired?What is revealed might change our lives.
Show us the key to existence.
Yet, like Russian dolls inside
Russian dolls, inside Russian dolls,
the smallest reveals only emptiness.Knock on a door, a sturdy door
that bars our way with atoms.
Atoms don’t listen for texture or gloss.
Atoms don’t know about hard and soft.
An atom is mostly emptiness.The more we bore down
going smaller and smaller,
the simpler relations must surely be.
But within those relations, Carlo Rovelli
reveals we have found a quantum key.
