Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution, by Carlo Rovelli Riverhead As you read these words the world around you seems pretty solid, pretty stable: The device you're using seems to exist on its own, with its own properties of shape and weight and color. So does the chair you're sitting in, the table your coffee cup is resting on and the coffee cup itself. But that solidity and independence is a kind illusion or, at least, so says the very physics that lets these words appear on the screen of your computer, smart phone or tablet. That physics, called quantum mechanics, re...