The wofflyness often gets in the way of understanding.
At one point he speaks of a world without time, elsewhere he says 'Time and space are real phenomena.' The difficulty I think Rovelli faces is that he uses the common physicist's approach of talking of a model as if it were reality. For example, at one point within a page of telling us of time's absence Rovelli writes of events that have duration and a 'when' - both meaningless terms without time. Time and again (pun intended) he tells us time doesn't exist, then makes use of it. It doesn't help either that the book is in translation so some scientific terms are mangled, or that Rovelli has a habit of self-contradiction.
The bad news is that Carlo Rovelli does this in such a flowery and hand-waving fashion that, though the reader may get a brief feeling that they understand what he's writing about, any understanding rapidly disappears like the scent of a passing flower (the style is catching). The good news is that The Order of Time does what A Brief History of Time seemed to promise but didn't cover: it attempts to explore what time itself is. Translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre.There's good news and bad news. With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, philosophy and art, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery.Įnlightening and consoling, The Order of Time shows that to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time - and to understand time we need to reflect on ourselves. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it.įrom Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. We are longing for a future that will not come’Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. The bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics takes us on an enchanting, consoling journey to discover the meaning of time.’ We are time.
Plus he lets you skip the technical bits if you want!” Rebekah Beautifully written, and at times quite poignant, this is a book for the curious. Rovelli unfurls the universe and how we experience time in a humourous, accessible way. “A stunning blend of science, poetry, and philosophy.
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