Carlo Rovelli (2021), arXiv preprint (chapter for the Oxford Handbook of the History of Interpretations of Quantum Physics, per arXiv comments) — ARXIV-2109.09170
Key takeaways
- RQM dissolves the measurement problem by treating quantum theory as a theory of sparse facts that are relative to interacting systems, with transition amplitudes yielding probabilities only when their arguments are facts relative to the same system, and decoherence making some facts approximately stable.
Seeded from the abstract and a skim, before the reading in NOTE-174. What follows is what the work says about itself.
Rovelli presents the relational interpretation as a solution to the measurement problem built on an ontology of sparse, relative events (“facts”) rather than quantum states. Facts occur in interactions between any two physical systems and are relative to those systems. The technical core is that quantum transition amplitudes give physical probabilities only when their arguments are facts relative to one and the same system. Where decoherence suppresses interference, the relativity of facts can be ignored and facts behave as approximately stable.
Standing in the record
Filed from the 2026-09-26 sweep of the papers-feed tracker for philosophy: 35 seconds of active reading over 1 session. It was filed Deferred, unread. NOTE-174 is the close reading of 2026-09-26, and it placed the work: Active — worth reading as the author’s own compact, current statement of RQM, and a good anchor citation for relational and perspectival readings. It is expository, not argumentative. It does not engage the inter-observer consistency objections in any depth, and the main technical rule is postulated, not derived.
When seeded, before the reading in NOTE-174, the entry gave a priority for a deeper reading: medium — short (t = 35 s) but a load-bearing statement of a major interpretation; the skim captures most of the argument, and the harder questions live in the cited follow-up papers.
What the seeding asked a deeper reading to check (NOTE-174 is that reading):
- A compact, author-authoritative statement of RQM useful as the anchor citation for relational/perspectival readings of quantum theory.
- Check how the “stable facts” account (ref. [18], Di Biagio & Rovelli) handles inter-observer consistency, the chief objection in the philosophical literature (e.g. Laudisa, Brukner-type no-go results).
- Check whether the dismissal of ψ-ontology engages the realist responses (Wallace, Carroll) or only the Schrödinger-wave picture.
Access when seeded: arXiv abs page (v1 submitted 19 Sep 2021; v3 30 Sep 2021) and full PDF (v3, 9 pp.) read directly; sections are unnumbered, so locations are PDF pages.