Carlo Rovelli

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Carlo Rovelli is an Italian physicist and cosmologist who has worked in Italy, the USA, and France. He was born in Verona, Italy in 1956. He is currently at the Université de la Méditerranée, in the Centre de Physique Théorique, 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, Lee Smolin and Abhay Ashtekar have introduced a theory of quantum gravity denoted loop quantum gravity. In 1995 Rovelli and Smolin obtained an explicit 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 the very small scale.

In 1994 Rovelli introduced the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, based on the idea that all quantum states are relative to an observer.

With Alain Connes he 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 were correct the flow of time would be an illusion, deriving from the incompleteness of knowledge.

In 1995 Rovelli 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.