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Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
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Review
“In clear, elegant prose, Rovelli guides the reader through a whirlwind tour of some of the biggest ideas in physics. His passion for his chosen field is evident on every page… One can easily imagine perusing these essays while comfortably ensconced in an overstuffed chair by the fire, a snifter of cognac in hand… The reader will come away…with a deeper understanding of how modern physics has brought us closer to an ultimate understanding of reality.”—The New York Times Book Review“A startling and illustrative distillation of centuries of science.”—The Economist “The man who makes physics sexy . . . the scientist they’re calling the next Stephen Hawking.” —The Times Magazine“Lean, lucid and enchanting.”—New Scientist“The essays in Seven Brief Lessons on Physics arrive like shots of espresso, which you can consume the way the Italians do, quickly and while standing up. As slim as a volume of poetry, Mr. Rovelli’s book also has that tantalizing quality that good books of poems have; it artfully hints at meanings beyond its immediate scope... [H]is book is a roll call of the scientists who have taken us so far, from Einstein and Niels Bohr through Werner Heisenberg and Stephen Hawking... The lessons in Mr. Rovelli’s book, as elegiac as they are incisive, do them justice.”—The New York Times“Delightful. . . . The metaphors are vivid, the visions dramatic.”—Nature “A very slim volume that contains multitudes... Italian theoretical physicist and writer Carlo Rovelli uses a conversational tone to untangle the most complicated yet most beautiful advances in science in modern history... You'll feel a whole lot smarter for having read this elegant, straightforward little book.”—Esquire, The Best Books of 2016 (So Far)“The writing is elegant and poetic, and Carlo's explanatory clarity is compelling. He organized this short book into seven lessons that introduce the non-specialized reader to the most fascinating questions about the universe, including how we learn about it.”—NPR“Rovelli has a rare knack for conveying the top line of scientific theories in clear and compelling terms without succumbing to the lure of elaborate footnotes... a breath of fresh air.”—The Guardian“Brief but eloquent... The slim volume is stereotypically the province of poetry, but this beautifully designed little book shows that science, with its curiosity, its intense engagement with what there really is, its readiness to jettison received ways of seeing, is a kind of poetry too”—Financial Times“[Carlo Rovelli’s] concise and comprehensible writing makes sense of intricate notions such as general relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology and thermodynamics. Rovelli's enthusiastic and poetic descriptions communicate the essence of these topics without getting bogged down in details.”—Scientific American“[A] quick, engaging read…fun and insightful…you wouldn’t go wrong taking [it] to the beach this summer.”—Forbes“Fascinating on every level.”—Daily Herald“This beautiful little volume playfully introduces its readers to several basic principles of physics in an easy-to-grasp style that will surprise and delight you.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Few writers have dared to compress the knowledge of a century’s worth of physics into less than 80 pages. Even fewer have succeeded with a touch of Carlo Rovelli’s clarity and verve…A sweeping presentation of the great ideas and discoveries of 20th century physics, aimed at readers with no scientific background whatsoever. It’s a joy to read.”—Gizmodo“A slim poetic meditation... Rovelli belongs to a great Italian tradition of one-culture science writing that encompasses the Roman poet Lucretius, Galileo, Primo Levi and Italo Calvino. The physics here is comprehensible and limpid, and Rovelli gives it an edge through his clear-eyed humanistic interpretations.”—The Independent“Slim and stimulating…Wonderfully poetic.”—Brain Pickings“Written to be accessible and to appeal to the imagination of the liberal arts major…Rovelli highlights the beauty of theories of gravity, time, and consciousness.”—The Curious Wavefunction“Rovelli's offering is a marvelous feast which should ignite a renewed sense of inspiration regarding the reach and beauty of science even in hardened veterans.”—The Millions“In a world where the public is interested in science, Rovelli is a great ambassador whose passion can be found in Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.”—International Business Times"It was eye-opening for me and truly changed how I will go forward in reading and learning about science."—Amy Poehler's Smart Girls“For the curious reader ready to plunge into theoretical physics, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli is a short accessible introduction. The chapters are manageable chunks of famous theories, most recognizable even to those of us who don’t happen to have a Ph.D... Mr. Rovelli shows how scientists can not only accept [contradictions between theories] but also revel in its infuriating layers.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette“Ultimately, Rovelli portrays the universe as a strange place where space-time, the present, the past and the future are illusions, and his unfolding of the mystery and the beauty of the universe is breathtaking.”—Raleigh News & Observer“An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review “This enchanting book…looks at physics as a continually changing quest for understanding our universe, instead of immutable laws of nature... The essays are a joyous celebration of scientific wonder.”—Publishers Weekly“Rovelli's enthusiasm for his subject is evident throughout, and his conversational tone brings an often dry subject to vibrant life. For those curious about the natural world and who wonder what actually exists outside Earth's atmosphere, Rovelli's explanations will intrigue and delight.”—Shelf Awareness “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is a science book that reads like a poem, and resonates like one, too.”—Bookpage “Rovelli does a masterful job breaking down complex subjects, like Einstein's theory of relativity and gravitational waves, into simple, easy-to-understand concepts.”—Law 360 “In Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli delivers physics lessons in a most untraditional way, inspiring readers to think differently, to get excited about discovery, to open their minds, to see beauty in the strange... Exquisite... If you love nonfiction and science as much as you love literary fiction, this is a must-read.”—Lovely Bookshelf“If you want to understand what gets physicists out of bed in the morning, there is no better guide than Rovelli... Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is an absorbing, lovely book... This is physics as romantic poetry and, by God, it’s beguiling”—New Statesman“Bite-sized but big on ideas: Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics … makes the mysteries of the universe almost comprehensible.”—Evening Standard “Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics has turned relativity and quantum physics into best-selling material.”—la Repubblica “Physics has always been popularized, but professor Rovelli’s book is something else: his prose stands out as pristine and seductive at the same time, with all the substance that arouses a real interest in his readers.”—Corriere della Sera“Plain words can be utterly beautiful when they tell a thrilling story. Carlo Rovelli's words take us on a great adventure as the human mind reaches out to understand the universe. The book is a joy.”—Alan Alda“Wonderfully clear and vivid. Carlo Rovelli manages to convey the mystery of very large things and very small things with brilliant effect.”—Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy“Rovelli has found a new way to talk about science, simple and keen. His seven lessons are as graceful, terse and dreamy as only poetry can sometimes be.”—Paolo Giordano, author of The Solitude of Prime Numbers“This brief and beautiful introduction to a few key discoveries of modern physics reminds us that the roots of science are curiosity and wonder.”—Lee Smolin, physicist and author, Time Reborn and The Trouble with Physics“No one should hold office unless they have read Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.”—Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker“This is a beautiful and moving book that will make you see the world with different eyes. It is soulfully human and yet full of the wonder of the natural universe. Rovelli somehow conveys the scope and depth of modern physics in everyday language without losing the poetry of the mathematical equations.”—Jenann Ismael, professor of philosophy at University of Arizona
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About the Author
Carlo Rovelli, an Italian theoretical physicist, is the head of the quantum gravity group at the Centre de Physique Théorique of Aix-Marseille Université. He is one of the founders of the loop quantum gravity theory. Rovelli lives in Marseille, France.
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Product details
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Books; First Edition edition (March 1, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399184414
ISBN-13: 978-0399184413
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 0.5 x 7.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.3 out of 5 stars
1,020 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#9,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
It’s Not What You ThinkBy Bob Gelms I have two science books that, over the years, have become my favorites, The Elegant Universe and The Field. I have just found a third, Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. Keep reading, it’s not what you think.First of all I have to tell you that there isn’t any math in the book. There is one equation that Mr. Rovelli prints just to show you what it looks like. It’s not very famous unless you are already a physicist. In the preface he states, “These lessons were written for those who know little or nothing about modern science. Together they provide a rapid overview of the most fascinating aspects of the great revolution that has occurred in physics in the twentieth and twenty first century…†In the spirit of Mr. Rovelli’s book, physics is the concrete explanation of the magic of the universe. It is the search for the truth about how everything in the universe operates interdependently on a grand scale (galaxies) and on the minute scale (electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, gluons, etc.) This search, at times, has been fraught with the real danger of losing your life. Galileo was almost burned at the stake, commuted to life imprisoned under house arrest, for simply saying that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Scientists in the twentieth century are a little better off. The book is very short. If you have the print version, it’s 81 pages long, with only seven chapters called lessons. It starts at the beginning of the twentieth century with, next to Isaac Newton, the most important physicist in all of history, Albert Einstein. Einstein’s theories are simply and elegantly explained in plain non-scientific language. The culmination of his work is called A General Theory of Relativity, in addition to three or four other papers that were glossed over and initially laughed at.Once the scientific community caught up with Einstein’s brain they were struck dumb with the beauty and simplicity of his vision for the operation of the universe. It has always struck me curious that when he won the Nobel Prize it wasn’t for relativity (E=MC2). It was for one of those glossed over papers on the nature of light. He did all of his work on relativity and the photoelectric effect in 1905, when he was 26 years old. Over the years, he became a towering giant in the history of science while remaining a gentle and kind man. The second lesson covers the exact opposite of Einstein’s theories. Planck, Bohr, and Heisenberg all contributed in some degree to the theory of the littlest “things†in the universe, which came to be called quantum mechanics. It deals with atoms and the particles that make them up, showing how they interact with the ever-changing landscape around and in them. Then all hell broke loose.It seems that the rules and regs that describe perfectly Einstein’s big universe of galaxies, stars, solar systems and planets do not work if you apply those rules and regs to the little world of quantum mechanics. Conversely if you take the rules and regs of the little universe of quantum mechanics and apply them to Einstein’s big universe you will find that they don’t work. WELL. Both theories contradict one another and they shouldn’t because they both work perfectly in their own space and time. The big prize in physics these days is to find the link between the two because it is inherent in both theories that there be something that draws them together. Einstein called it the unified field theory and he tried to find it his whole life. He failed. Lessons One, Two and Seven are the far and away the most interesting and most important in the book. The other essays cover more popular topics like time, black holes, probability, particles, and a lesson called Grains of Space which is a brief explanation of a theory founded by Mr. Rovell, himself a theoretical physicist. In it, he attempts, I think, to reconcile the big with the small worlds of physics. It is called loop quantum gravity and it’s where general relativity meets quantum mechanics. In many ways the most interesting of all the essays is the last one. It’s simply called Ourselves. This is where Mr. Rovelli attempts to equate us, homo sapiens, to the interworking of the universe. We are all made of stardust put together using the immutable laws of nature. Our bodies conform to how the atoms we are made of obey quantum mechanics and the way in which we pass through time and space. It is utterly fascinating. I had an “oh wow†moment. I’d like to close with Mr. Rovelli’s words. “Here, on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world. And it’s breathtaking.â€
Every once in a while it's a good idea to stand back from the daily necessities of our lives and look back and marvel at what we as human beings have accomplished in our understanding of ourselves and our universe. In very few instances is this wonder more apparent than in an appreciation of the discoveries that physics has made regarding space and time.In this short and highly readable book, Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli leads us through a tour of what he thinks are seven of the foremost ideas (or "lessons') in physics. These are ideas which have not just furthered our understanding of our material world but which have also expanded our consciousness and connected us to our origins and future. Rovelli’s writing is often poignant and beautiful, simple and without frills and from the heart, and I would be lying if I said the experience wasn't uplifting. Personally I would have included an extra eighth lesson on chaos theory and complexity since I think those are going to be key scientific issues in the 21st century. Also, there is little new per se in here which would not be familiar to physics aficionados. But as it stands Rovelli's offering is a marvelous feast which should ignite a renewed sense of inspiration regarding the reach and beauty of science even in hardened veterans.The first lesson is about Einstein's general theory of relativity which saw yet another towering validation this year with the discovery of gravitational waves. The Russian physicist Lev Landau called it the "most beautiful theory" and I would say there would be few contenders for that title. The basic equation of the theory fits on a napkin, and the essentials of the framework are both startling and elegant. As Rovelli explains, Einstein's major breakthrough was to realize that Newton's gravitational field is not a field at all but is spacetime itself. That one insight suddenly elevated all of physics to a completely new level and it opened up previously unimaginable vistas - black holes, neutron stars, radio astronomy, the Big Bang - to deep exploration. Here's Rovelli on the essential craziness of Einstein's equation: "Within this equation there is a teeming universe. And here the magical richness of the theory opens up into a phantasmagorical succession of predictions that resemble the delirious ravings of a madman, but which have all turned out to be true."The second lesson concerns the other big revolution of twentieth century physics - quantum mechanics. Relativity is astonishing but its basic tenets are easy to understand. In contrast, even the basic tenets of quantum theory - wave particle duality, entanglement, the uncertainty principle - have left even the theory's great founders befuddled. Quantum mechanics is unique in the history of science as a theory which is spectacularly successful in its practical applications while at the same time continuing to be virtually impenetrable in its philosophical implications. It opened up vast new areas of modern life to understanding; without it computers, chemistry, electronics and molecular biology would be inconceivable. And yet the sheer weirdness of its laws continues to defy every commonsense expectation. Rovelli zeroes in on one of the essential qualities of quantum mechanics when he says that its laws "do not describe what happens to a physical system but only how one physical system affects another". I find it interesting that the same interactions which lie at the heart of quantum theory also underlie the science of emergent complex systems like the weather, the stock market, biochemical networks and social networks.The third chapter talks about the Big Bang theory and the architecture of the cosmos. Rovelli wrote just before the discovery of gravitational waves otherwise he would have included them in his discussion but he talks about many other wonders revealed by Einstein's theory combined with many of the tools of modern physics such as radio telescopes and particle detectors. The culmination of applying relativity to the universe must surely be the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe, although the presence of what we call "dark matter" leaves something to be desired.The fourth lesson tells us how the findings of quantum mechanics led to an explosion of understanding of the building blocks of the cosmos in the postwar years. Quarks and electrons, Higgs bosons and neutrinos all make important appearances in this story. The culmination of all this progress was the Standard Model of particle physics, essentially a kind of periodic table which lists all known particles and their properties. And yet unlike general relativity the Standard Model is incomplete. Many of the particles' parameters are poorly understood, and the model itself is incompatible with general relativity. In addition there are ugly infinities arising in the theoretical treatment of all those particles which have to be tamed by artificially imposed mathematical order. These deficiencies make the Standard Model very much of a model. It is in the Standard Model that we start to glimpse the first troubling signs of how much more we have to discover in fundamental physics. But in trouble lies opportunity and glory, and in one sense the Standard Model only points to the bounty of undiscovered delights which must surely lie ahead.The fifth lesson tackles one of the greatest scientific facing science, the marriage of general relativity with quantum mechanics; a marriage which as of now seems to end in violent, unholy divorce every time we attempt it. Interestingly there is not a word about string theory, probably because Rovelli himself works on a rival theory called loop quantum gravity. There is a capsule description of the theory which emphasizes again the fact that the framework is less about objects themselves and more about their interconnections. In this case the connections are between tiny quanta of space - which are themselves space.The sixth lesson takes us on a journey into one of the most exciting frontiers of modern physics: the union of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and relativity. This union is wondrous and critical because it can help us understand perhaps the deepest question we can ponder: the fact that time seems to flow only in one direction. As Rovelli explains, the arrow of time seems to be inextricably linked with the flow of heat. The second law of thermodynamics and its postulated increase of entropy tracks with the forward arrow of time, although on an individual particle level this arrow is reversible. Figuring out these conundrums of time and thermodynamics will undoubtedly take us into some very novel territory. In this context Stephen Hawking's discovery of radiation emanating from black holes is surely a promising springboard. Time, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, statistics; it's all here, and it's all tantalizing.The seventh lesson ties it all up together as Rovelli talks about the ultimate entity that allows us to figure all this out - the human brain. He ponders the delectable paradox that an entity which is composed of particles and fields and quanta can also decipher its own mysteries. Understanding this self-recursive extrapolation should keep us occupied for as long into the future as we can imagine, and it's also what should make us cherish our unique existence as sentient beings on this planet. And yet, as unique as we are, Rovelli reminds us in closing that our lowly origins from elemental life forms and the ordinariness of our planet, our solar system and our galaxy should not blind us to what might be the greatest lesson of all: humility and wonder."Here, on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world. And it's breathtaking".
This is a lovely little book with a half dozen very readable chapters on physics, which is the study of how material reality is constructed. That seventh chapter is full of mush about reality, which you may value, but it isn't physics. Sig. Rovelli seems to accept only one reality - material reality. This puts him at odds with The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose. That book is a big fat thing available for about the same price as Rovelli's, To an American Mathematical Society review, "For anybody who wants to learn up-to-date physics at a level between standard popularization and graduate text, The Road to Reality is the only book in town." Review is at[...]Penrose proposes interlinked realities of math, mind and matter at the beginning of his book, and revisits the proposition at the end. The Platonic reality of mathematics, a portion of which underlies all of physics, isn't generally accepted. Mind as distinguished from brain is also anathema. It's as much easier to accept Rovelli's views in that last chapter as it is to read his book, but it's a problem chapter which I think is too 19th century and for that reason wrong. Reality is an impossibility shrieking for an explanation - Penrose accepts the burden, Rovelli does not.
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