Reality Is Not What It Seems

The Journey to Quantum Gravity

By: Carlo Rovelli, Simon Carnell - translator, Erica Segre - translator

Narrated by: Roy McMillan

“The man who makes physics sexy . . . the scientist they’re calling the next Stephen Hawking.” —The Times Magazine

From the New York Times–bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, Helgoland, and Anaximander, a closer look at the mind-bending nature of the universe.

What are the elementary ingredients of the world? Do time and space exist? And what exactly is reality? Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli has spent his life exploring these questions. He tells us how our understanding of reality has changed over the centuries and how physicists think about the structure of the universe today.

In elegant and accessible prose, Rovelli takes us on a wondrous journey from Democritus to Albert Einstein, from Michael Faraday to gravitational waves, and from classical physics to his own work in quantum gravity. As he shows us how the idea of reality has evolved over time, Rovelli offers deeper explanations of the theories he introduced so concisely in Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.

This book culminates in a lucid overview of quantum gravity, the field of research that explores the quantum nature of space and time, seeking to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity. Rovelli invites us to imagine a marvelous world where space breaks up into tiny grains, time disappears at the smallest scales, and black holes are waiting to explode—a vast universe still largely undiscovered.

Loop Theory + Philosophy + Poetry

Any additional comments?

Carlo Rovelli is a loop theorist by trade, a bit of a philosopher by nature, and not a little poetic about either.

Let me tell you why these three things make this book very special.

Loop Theory (aka Loop Quantum Gravity) is less popular than its main competitor String Theory. This gives Rovelli a unique perspective, and explains why you probably haven't heard it. For example, Rovelli is certain that spacetime - like all of reality - is granular, and not only that, but it embodies the "relational" aspect of quantum mechanics, ie it is a manifestation of field interactions, not a backdrop for other granular particles to manifest in. As Rovelli puts it 'all of reality is covariant quantum fields'. At its root then: no waves, no particles, only fields. "Space" is no longer different from "matter" at this level.

The philosopher in Rovelli rephrases this: 'We inhabit not a world of things, but a world of events.'

And therein lies the poetry.

Any differentiation among spacetime and matter comes in the "covariant" of "covariant quantum fields". This is the way in which information correlates among things which hold information.

Herein is also how our concept of time emerges from a world in which there really is no time. The world is only these very very very many interactions and information correlations. If we comprehended all this information as it interacted, we would know the totality of the future microstates - ie there would be no need to establish a concept of time. As Rovelli poetically puts it, 'however, had we perceived time in nanoseconds...' we would not have evolved the notion of time. Again, Rovelli: 'Time, then, is our ignorance.'

I LOVE this. It squares so well with my interpretation of the Mary's Room thought experiment (in the Mind-Body Problem of consciousness): either Mary attains color vision (and so much more) from her complete knowledge of all microstates while inside the room, or her books never contained such complete information in the first place.

Anyway, this is a fantastic book. Read it for the science. Read it for the philosophy. Read it for the poetry.

Before being technical, science is visionary

"Before being technical, science is visionary."
- Carlo Rovelli, Reality is Not What it Seems

(5 stars for poetry; 3 stars for precision)

When one discusses matters celestial or theoretical or cosmological it best translates when done in math or poetry. Rovelli has an amazing talent for singing the esoteric, theoretical language of Quantum Gravity. He finds meter with its loops and rhyme in the paradoxes. He is able to fluidly convert the edges of theoretical physics into a language that amateur scientists, the untrained, or even the casually curious can enjoy.

I'd write more today, but I'm heading tomorrow to a land where I can observe better the eclipse next week. May the sun shine, the clouds part, and the predictive abilities of cosmologists continue, at least for another week. I'll pick this review up again in a week+ with some notes and comments about the eclipse and the non-infinite universe.

**** (x) ****

Post eclipse Baily's beads. So, one of the people I met at the eclipse totality (she stayed at my sister-in-law's house in Rigby, Idaho) was Lisa Randall, Harvard professor of particle physics and dark matter expert. I teased her about how it must be tough to hear an Italian physicist proclaim the death of String Theory and that Loop Theory is where it is at. She sniffed and said he was a great writer, but she couldn't take seriously someone who got the basics of quantum mechanics and the date of the discovery of the Higgs particle wrong*. The many errors, and general sloppiness of physics in the book drove her nuts.

I can see Randall's point, but also still love the way that Rovelli translates, even with a certain looseness, Quantum Gravity and the history of physics for layman like myself. It highlights one of the tensions that have existed for years in science. Often, fame follows not just who is RIGHT, but who WRITES well.

As my NOW favorite LIVING theoretical physicist Lisa Randall suggests in her New York Times review :

"The beauty of physics lies in its precise statements, and that is what is essential to convey. Many readers won’t have the background required to distinguish fact from speculation. Words can turn equations into poetry, but elegant language shouldn’t come at the expense of understanding."

* On page 129 Rovelli says "A recent confirmation was the discovery of the Higgs particle, which caused a sensation in 2013." (4 July 2012 was the date of discovery; on December 10, 2013, Peter Higgs and François Englert were awarded Nobel prizes for predicting this discovery). Randall also told me she had an issue with the metaphors Rovelli used. "Metaphors are supposed to make things more clear, not more confusing."

It's Physic's, just that..

listened to it in two sittings. I'm not a Physics student but none the less found it fasinating.

fantastic overview of the current state of science

I really enjoyed the narrator, and the actual narrative from the author is amazing. It leads to a lot of great questions, like any good science book.

Absolutley excellent! The book is very insightful

I don't know anything about physics. But this book laid it out in a way that I could understand and thoroughly enjoy. Thank you to the author and the narrator for making the subject very very interesting.