Carlo Rovelli

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Carlo Rovelli is an Italian-born physicist who has worked in Italy, the USA and France. He is currently at the Université de la Méditerranée and the Centre de Physique Theorique in Marseille, France. He is also affiliated Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Pittsburgh, USA and member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He graduated in 1986, at the University of Padova, Italy. His work is mainly in the field of quantum gravity.

In 1988, Carlo Rovelli and Lee Smolin have introduced a theory of quantum gravity denoted loop quantum gravity. In 1995, Rovelli and Smolin have obtained an explicit basis of states of quantum gravity, labelled by Penrose's spin networks, and using this basis they have shown 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 1994 he has introduced the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, based on the idea that all quantum states are relative to an observer.

With Alain Connes, he has formulated a covariant model of Quantum field theory, based on the thermal time hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, time does not exist in the fundamental theory and emerges only in a thermodynamical or statistical context. If this was correct, the flow of time would be an illusion, deriving form the incompletness of knowledge.

In 1995, Rovelli has received the International Xanthopoulos Award for his contributions to theoretical physics.

[edit] Books

• "Quantum Gravity", Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-83733-2
• "Che cos'è il tempo? Che cos'è lo spazio?", Di Renzo Editore, ISBN 88-8323-082-5
• "Qu'est-ce le temps? Qu'est-ce l'espace?", Bernard Gilson éditeur, ISBN 2-87269-159-6.
• "What is time, what is space?", Di Renzo Editore, 2006, ISBN 88-8323-146-5.

[edit] 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