This book was referred to me by Prabasaj-da, and it continues my search to understand quantum theory a bit more than I ever have.

The book is structured like Galileo’s famous dialogue Two New Sciences — in fact, the subtitle is “A Galilean Dialogue.” There are three protagonists: Silvati, who champions quantum theory; Simplicio, who holds more firmly to classical physics; and Sagredo, the purportedly wise go-between.

Reviews in this format tend to be positive, but this conversational style doesn’t quite work for me. The exchanges sometimes felt twisted and conjured up unnaturally. A couple of times, Simplicio’s questions landed exactly on the thought I had in that moment — but those were the exceptions. I generally prefer reading prose and pausing to think on my own.

The content itself is solid. It dives into the questions any early learner like me will encounter in quantum physics. For that reason, I think it would shine as a group read — something to discuss together rather than work through alone.

It’s under 100 pages and an easy read.

“Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution”

I think it was John McGehee who recommended this book in a Facebook comment. I’m genuinely grateful to him, because this turned out to be a fantastic read. It’s especially insightful for a layperson like me. At times it does get confusing, but that’s the nature of the subject, not a failing of the author.

My biggest aha moment came when Rovelli explains that what we think of as an object’s properties are actually relative to the observer. If we could not observe something, we would not even think of it as having properties. Quantum physics started to feel a bit more approachable once I grasped this core idea: reality is made up of relations rather than objects.

The explanation of superposition, especially when it involves understanding entanglement between two objects from the perspective of a third observer, was harder to wrap my head around.

One thing I really enjoyed was how Rovelli weaves in the personal histories of the great physicists in this field. It adds a human touch to an otherwise abstract topic. In the second half of the book, he dives into philosophical debates, particularly between Lenin and Bogdanov, and questions like “What does meaning mean?” I’ll admit, I sometimes wondered what this had to do with quantum physics, but the writing is clear and engaging enough that I still enjoyed it.

There’s a striking line in the book: “I is a process, not an entity.” It takes a bit of thought to unpack. What we call the “self” isn’t really a fixed object, but a flow of sensations and feelings we experience in the moment.

My favorite quote, though, comes from the nineteenth-century French philosopher Hippolyte Taine. Rovelli uses it while discussing how we perceive the world. It’s not that we passively receive signals and then interpret them. The brain is constantly predicting, and the eyes mainly report deviations from those predictions. The quote goes:

“External perception is an internal dream which proves to be in harmony with external things; and instead of calling ‘hallucination’ a false perception, we must call external perception ‘a confirmed hallucination’.”

That one really stayed with me.

A few other memorable lines from the book:

“Abandoning assumptions that seem self-evident can lead to greater understanding.”

“Never express more clearly than you are able to think.” (Niels Bohr)

“However mysterious the mind-body problem might be for us, we should always remember that it is a solved problem for nature.”

“The external point of view does not exist. Every description of the world is from inside it.”

I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

This book wasn’t even on my radar until I grabbed a coffee with my friend Charlie Tillinghast. He mentioned it covered some of the backstory behind how he started Factal, so naturally, I picked up a copy.

While I’m glad I bought it for the few pages featuring Charlie, that’s where the highlights end.

To be honest, the writing style is rough. The whole thing reads like a giant, bulleted “To-Do” list for entrepreneurs, but without any real “aha” moments. Even worse, it occasionally felt like an unabashed marketing brochure for the author’s other books and articles.

The book is packed with stories about real founders, but it consistently chooses surface-level skimming over deep, actionable insights. There were two notable exceptions—Titan Casket by Scott Ginsberg and, to a lesser extent, Seemore Meats and Veggies by Cara Nicoletti—where the storytelling actually had some meat on the bone.

On the bright side? It’s a quick 180 pages with a font so large I could probably read it from across the room in good lighting.

Unless you’re looking for a specific anecdote about a friend, I’d skip this one.

For some time now, I have had this urge to learn a bit about Quantum Physics. Well, maybe it started when a recruiter reached out to me about a CEO job at a quantum computing company on the East Coast. I was intrigued, to say the least. I had no qualifications whatsoever. Turns out, he had seen me run a company called Quantum Spatial (a geospatial company)… and you can put the rest of the story together.

Anyway, I finally searched the internet a bit and picked up this book. I would not recommend it. It is too basic. Most of the book could have fit into 10 pages. If any of you know a good book on this subject for a beginner like me, please do let me know.