Carlo Rovelli

Carlo Rovelli
Carlo Rovelli
Born	3 May 1956 (1956-05-03) Verona, Italy
Residence	Marseille, France
Nationality	USA and Italy
Fields	Theoretical physics
Institutions	University of Pittsburgh, USA Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France Università di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA Yale University, New Haven, USA
Alma mater	Università di Bologna Università di Padova Università di Trento
Doctoral advisor	Marco Toller
Known for	Loop Quantum Gravity Relational interpretation of quantum mechanics Thermal time hypothesis Timeless formulation of physical laws Discreteness of space
Influences	Chris Isham
Notable awards	Xanthopoulos Award (1995) Pittsburgh Research Award (1995) Prix du Rayonnement International (2004)
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Carlo Rovelli is an Italian physicist who has worked in Italy, the USA, and France. His work is mainly in the field of quantum gravity. He is among the founders of the Loop Quantum Gravity theory.

Life and career

Carlo Rovelli was born in Verona, Italy, in 1956. In the 1970s he participated in the student political movements in Italian universities. He was involved with the free political radio stations Radio Alice in Bologna and Radio Anguana in Verona, which he helped found. In conjunction with his political activity, he was charged, but later released, for crimes of opinion related to the book Fatti Nostri, which he co-authored with Enrico Palandri, Maurizio Torrealta, and Claudio Piersanti. In 1981 he graduated with a BS/MS in Physics from the University of Bologna, and in 1986 he obtained his PhD at the University of Padova, Italy. He refused military service, which was compulsory in Italy at the time, and was therefore briefly detained in 1987. He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Rome and at Yale University. He was on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh from 1990 to 2000. He is currently at the Université de la Méditerranée, in the Centre de Physique Théorique, in Marseille, France. He has also long held the post of Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Pittsburgh.

Loop Quantum Gravity

In 1988 Carlo Rovelli, Lee Smolin, and Abhay Ashtekar introduced a theory of quantum gravity called loop quantum gravity. In 1995 Rovelli and Smolin obtained a clear basis of states of quantum gravity, labelled by Penrose's spin networks, and using this basis they were able to show that the theory predicts that area and volume are quantized. This result indicates the existence of a discrete structure of space at very small scale. In 1997 Rovelli and Michael Reisenberger introduced a "sum over surfaces" formulation of theory, which has since evolved into the currently popular covariant "spinfoam" version of loop quantum gravity. The theory is today considered a leading candidate for a quantum theory of gravity and finds tentative applications in areas such as quantum cosmology and quantum black hole physics.

Other major works

In his 2004 book Quantum Gravity, Rovelli developed a formulation of classical and quantum mechanics that does not make any explicit reference to the notion of time. Rovelli defends the idea that such a timeless formalism is needed to describe the world in the regimes where the quantum properties of the gravitational field cannot be disregarded. This is because the quantum fluctuation of spacetime itself make the notion of time unsuitable for writing physical laws in the conventional form of evolution laws in time.

This position has lead him to face the following problem: if time is not part of the fundamental theory of the world, then how does time emerge? In 1993, in collaboration with Alain Connes, Rovelli has proposed a solution to this problem called the thermal time hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, time emerges only in a thermodynamic or statistical context. If this is correct, the flow of time is an illusion, one deriving from the incompleteness of knowledge.

In 1994 Rovelli introduced the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, based on the idea that the quantum state of a system must always to be interpreted as relative to another physical system (like the "velocity of an object" is always relative to another object, in classical mechanics). The idea has been developed and analyzed in particular by Bas van Fraassen and by Michel Bitbol.

History and philosophy of science

Rovelli has also worked in the history and philosophy of science. He has written a book on the Greek philosopher Anaximander, published in France in June 2009 and scheduled for publication in the US, Italy, Brazil and Greece in 2011. Using the historical figure of Anaximander as a starting point, the book analyses the main aspects of scientific thinking and articulates Rovelli's views on science. Anaximander is presented in the book as a main initiator of scientific thinking. For Rovelli, science is a continuous process of exploring novel possible views of the world; this happens via a "learned rebellion," which always builds and relies on previous knowledge but at the same time continuously questions aspects of this received knowledge. The foundation of science, therefore, is not certainty but the very opposite, a radical uncertainty about our own knowledge, or equivalently, an acute awareness of the extent of our ignorance.

Main recognitions

• Senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF)
• Honorary Professor of the Beijing Normal University, in China.
• Member of the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences
• Honorary member of the Accademia di Scienze Arti e Lettere di Verona
• 1995 International Xanthopoulos Award for his contributions to theoretical physics.
• 2009 First 'community' prize of the FQXi contest on the 'nature of time'.

Books

• "Fatti Nostri", Bertani editore, 1977, (re-edited Rimini, Nda Press, 2007), ISBN 978-88-89035-17-7
• "Quantum Gravity", Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-83733-2
• "What is time, what is space?", Di Renzo Editore, 2006, ISBN 88-8323-146-5.
  • "Qu'est-ce le temps? Qu'est-ce l'espace?", Bernard Gilson éditeur, ISBN 2-87269-159-6.
  • "Che cos'è il tempo? Che cos'è lo spazio?", Di Renzo Editore, ISBN 88-8323-082-5
• "The first scientist. Anaximander and his legacy", Westholme Publishing, 2011.
  • "Anaximandre de Millet, ou la naissance de la science", Dunod, 2009. ISBN 978-2-10-052939-1.
  • "Che cos'è la scienza. La rivoluzione di Anassimandro", Mondadori Università, 2011 ISBN 9788861840751

See also

• Lorentz invariance in loop quantum gravity

External links

• Homepage
• Carlo Rovelli, A Dialog on Quantum Gravity, preprint available as hep-th/0310077
• Loop Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli
• Quantum Gravity, draft of the book "Quantum Gravity"
• Curriculum Vitae et Studiorum