The Order of Time

De: Carlo Rovelli

Narrado por: Benedict Cumberbatch

One of TIME’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade

"Meet the new Stephen Hawking . . . The Order of Time is a dazzling book." --The Sunday Times

From the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Reality Is Not What It Seems, Helgoland, and Anaximander comes a concise, elegant exploration of time.

Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike.

For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe.

Already a bestseller in Italy, and written with the poetic vitality that made Seven Brief Lessons on Physics so appealing, The Order of Time offers a profoundly intelligent, culturally rich, novel appreciation of the mysteries of time.

Incredibly mind opening

Absolutely loved the content, and listening to the narrator extended the enjoyability beyond what I had imagined when starting. Like the experience itself of listening, the book also defies imagination of how well structured the depiction of time is laid out. I now want to start over, rather than go to my next book. It is that good.

Exceptional on every level

Fascinating history & science yet eloquently written. Performance by Benedict Cumberbatch that couldn’t have been more perfect…This audiobook was absolutely fantastic all around. I highly recommend it.

A tremendously insightful view of time.

I wish more scientists could write books like Carla Rovelli did. It brings the concept of the universe ie. quantum mechanics down to the understandable level.

It reads like poetry

Beautifully written and read. Complex topics required a second listen but well worth the time. Highly recommend.

Extremely mixed bag

Where to begin with this book. He packed so much into such a tiny space. The physics is conceptual, not mathematical, and it's still really dense and unintuitive stuff. A+ to the author for making it as understandable as he could.

The long portions where he tries to tie quantum physics back into experience, and the philosophy and poetic sections in general, are extremely lacking. I hesitate to call it a fool's errand, but at the very least he fell woefully short. Adding high-minded quotes and poetry to confusion yields the illusion of profundity but doesn't actually increase understanding.

In the end, I walked away with slightly more actual understanding of quantum physics, but mostly just the *feeling* that I'd learned something rather than the reality of having done so.

The narration could not have been better. I hope to hear much more read by Cumberbatch in the future. His acting and presentation skills are as well honed for The Order of Time as they are for any other genre. The man is absurdly talented and diverse.