Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

It’s Not What You Think By 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.”

This is my first exposure to Rovelli’s writing, and this little book is delightful. True to its title, it’s a short (81 page) review of pertinent topics in physics, written for the layperson. I have little formal training in the subject, but am interested in discoveries within the field and how they affect our understanding of reality and our place in the cosmos. Rovelli is a great tour guide. Expect to learn about the relatively cold world of Newtonian mechanics, its contrast to the present wave-particle hypotheses of quantum mechanics, the Standard Model, the relationship between heat and time (one of my favorite sections), and black holes. He’s clearly a scientist, but he recognizes the omnipresence of mystery, “…science shows us how to better understand the world, but it also reveals to us just how vast the extent of what is still not known/Myths nourish science, and science nourishes myth.” His writing style can be described as brief (again, true to its title), intentional, economical, and clear. He occasionally strays from his narration of physics to make a point about humanity, consciousness, and the nature of scientific inquiry. It’s never superfluous- he gets to the point. I like that- he respects my time as a reader. For a scientist and author to distill some of the most complex concepts in human history and present them in an accessible manner is no easy feat! I admire the mastery it takes. Rovelli clearly understands the material and loves his subject. A reader can walk away from this book with a sense of enchantment for the subject. That is successful science writing. If you’re interested in an brief yet grounded overview of modern physics, read this book. This would definitely be appreciated by readers of Brian Greene, Michio Kaku, Lisa Randall, and Janna Levin.

In the preface, it says; "These were written for those who know little or nothing about modern science." The book includes seven lessons on modern physics, say, relativity, quantum mechanics, and cosmology. I finished the book only half a day. It was possible because the book was easy to read and the total pages were less than 90 pages. Many other authors say the same thing in their prefaces, but most of them are liars. But what Rovelli said was true. You may be a general reader who is interested in the problem of confliction between general relativity and quantum mechanics or the questions about the Big Bang such that what there was before the Big Bang. Or, the questions about time such that time is real. If so, I'd like to strongly recommend the book to you. In solving the problem and questions, since 1980s, there has been some progress, called loop quantum gravity. The author is one of the founders of the theory. Under the light of the theory, the author introduces readers to modern physics in a friendly tone, but never fails to focus on the key points. Personally, I am interested in Buddhism. Buddha says that if a man achieves "the greatest realization", then, to him, time is an illusion. Reading the book, I thought that loop quantum gravity could give a scientific explanation for it. But the book was not perfect for me. In the seventh lesson, the author speaks about human beings. The theme question is what the meaning of human beings in the universe is. However, the lesson seems overly speculative. Except the seventh lesson, the book was all good.

Rovelli’s words arrive in me like weather. Not metaphorical weather, but the real thing: a change in pressure, a lifting of fog, a sudden brightness that makes the contours of the world feel newly edged, newly alive. When I read him, something in my body remembers how to breathe more fully. He speaks of the Big Bang (spoiler: Big Bounce, perhaps?) and the fabric of space, and what he does first is strip away a lie we have told ourselves about science. This is not the continuation of bedtime stories, he says. It is the continuation of dawn. It is the moment when the fire has burned down to embers and someone stands, stretches, and looks at the ground. It is the gaze of our ancestors reading the savannah as scripture, bending close to dust, tracking what cannot be seen by following what has been left behind. That image opens me like a door. Science, in Rovelli’s telling, is not conquest. It is pursuit with humility. It is a practice of attention so refined that it accepts its own fallibility as a condition of truth. We might be wrong. We must be ready to turn. The track may vanish or double back or dissolve into wind. And yet we follow, because the world is legible if we are patient enough to learn its grammar. This is where the joy comes in. Not the brittle joy of certainty, but the feral, durable joy of curiosity that survives disappointment. Rovelli takes the old stories—time as a river, space as a stage, matter as solid and obedient—and he loosens their knots without contempt. He does not smash myth; he composts it. From its decay, something richer grows. A story that fits what we now know, and still leaves room for astonishment. His book is small enough to slip into a pocket. Eighty-one pages. Seven brief lessons, yes, but lessons is too stiff a word. These are wanderings. These are pauses beside strange flowers. These are moments when you stop walking altogether because the ground itself has become interesting. I find myself reading slowly, not because it is difficult, but because it is alive. Each paragraph asks to be lingered with, tasted, carried into the day. I look up from the page and the world feels altered. Time less tyrannical. Space less empty. Knowledge less about possession and more about relationship. I have always known that I am a teacher, though never the kind who stands apart. I am the child in the woods, mud on my knees, who finds a beetle jeweled with green fire or a toad breathing ancient patience and calls out: Come here, come quick, you have to see this. Teaching, for me, has never been about instruction. It has been about contagion. About passing on the spark of wonder before it cools. In Rovelli, I recognize this same impulse. He is not telling us what to think. He is inviting us to kneel beside him in the dust and learn how to look. He trusts that the world, once attended to, will do the teaching itself. There is an ecstasy in that trust. A deep gladness that says we are not finished, not closed, not done discovering who we are or where we live. We are still following tracks at first light, still willing to be surprised, still capable of getting it right—if not forever, then for a while, then again. And when I finish his book, I feel what I always feel after true discovery: the urgent tenderness of wanting to share it. To say, softly but insistently, this is beautiful. This is how we learn. Come with me.

“We are made up of the same atoms and the same light signals as are exchanged between pine trees in the mountains and stars in the galaxies.” This is one of my favorite passages from Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. I discovered this little black book of physics on the front page of last week’s New York Times Book Review. I have a penchant for quantum physics and how it connects to spirituality, so I was curious as to what I would discover in its pages. At a mere 81 pages it has become a bestseller in the U.S. and around the world, and in its own mysterious way, has taken the book world by storm. There is nothing groundbreaking here for anyone that is not familiar with the basics of modern physics. The seven lesson topics include Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology and thermodynamics. Rovelli, who is one of the founders of loop quantum gravity theory, admits this himself: “These lessons were written for those who know little or nothing about modern science.” I did learn a few new things, for example, that space moves like the surface of the sea, that it has “gravitational waves,” that black holes are really hot, and that the two major theories of 20th century physics, general relativity and quantum mechanics, clash. I had never heard of loop quantum gravity, which dispenses entirely with the concept of continuous space-time. Most interesting was the fact that modern physicists believe that the idea of a present common to the whole universe is an illusion that “doesn’t work.” Rovelli does have moments of poetic grace as he attempts to bridge these abstract concepts to our everyday reality. In lesson one, Einstein’s theory of relativity, he writes, “Ever since we discovered that Earth is round and turns like a mad spinning-top, we have understood that reality is not as it appears to us: every time we glimpse a new aspect of it, it is a deeply emotional experience. Another veil has fallen.” He also mentions the soul in his closing chapter, but only once, and in passing. He writes, “Life on Earth gives only a small taste of what can happen in the universe. Our very soul itself is only one such small example.” He acknowledges the soul, yet doesn’t write anything more about it. I enjoyed Rovelli’s wonder and passion for the architecture of the universe. He expresses his enchantment best in the last sentence of his book, “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.” Does this book bring us closer to understanding our reality? Yes. It updates us on the status of the universe with remarkable brevity, and it's worth reading if you are interested in these concepts or know nothing about them and want to (opt for a copy at your local library, or borrow from a friend). Ultimately, though I believe this book has been overhyped and may not be worth a purchase or place on your bookshelf.

Not a difficult read and very interesting subjects, all explained in a non academic way. But if you have read his ‘Reality Is Not What It Seems’ then you can skip this book as except for just a few minor details, it’s a duplication of what’s in there. The only problem I have with this typical scientist is that he holds up an open minded approach to ‘what is’ as an ideal that should be adhered to by all, but trashes any belief in God. Modern science is a discipline without soul, as good a definition of it as any, and that could be where the ‘typical’ scientists problem lies. Soul, a substance which gives depth to life, it doesn’t skim across the top of it, like science, on a surface of ‘things’. Instead of being obsessed with the material universe science should also be investigating how did Jesus, (for instance, and others with ‘supernatural’ powers we call mystics), work the miracles he did. How was he able to manipulate matter, turning water into wine etc. using mind alone. What did he ‘tap’ into, especially as he stated we that follow would do more than he. It’s a field science has completely neglected. (Calling Jesus God, and thereby removing him from the plane of humanity hasn’t helped). But given the seeming mysteries of quantum behavior perhaps therein lies a little daylight, contradictions to what we thought we knew, (it’s happened often enough). Please note I am not ‘religious’ at all, I do not believe Jesus was divine, but all my life I have been on a path to discover ‘what is’ and I do know there is an entity in this universe that somehow permeates everything in it, detectable by man, that we are calling God, and therein lies a limitless source of energy. A life form not carbon based. It’s difficult to discern the source of this ‘miraculous’ energy, does it come from ‘God’ or is it all around us and it’s our own limitations that keep us from utilizing it to the extent that some already have.

Gosh, I love love love this book. It’s super easy, so well written, deep enough but in a very approachable way. Highly recommend for anyone, or as a great book as a gift to any nerd-adjacent or inclined person.

Carlo Rovelli is known for Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM), which says the quantum state of a system is never an absolute, observer-independent property; the system's state is defined relative to some other physical system. RQM is correlations between systems, not as an intrinsic description of “how things are in themselves". Different observers (or systems) (observers are not necessarily conscious) can assign different states and different values to the same system, without any contradiction, because those states are relative to their own interactions. Rovelli removes any special ontological status for “measurement”: a measurement is just a physical interaction between two systems. RQM's relational stance fits Rovelli’s broader picture, where reality is a network of interactions rather than individual separate things. Rovelli's RQM changes Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation by eliminating the privileged role of classical observers. Copenhagen treats wave function collapse as occurring upon interaction with a classical measuring device. RQM views outcomes as relative between any interacting quantum systems without collapse. Rovelli sees RQM as a continuation of the move begun with relativity: just as time and simultaneity became relative, in quantum theory all physical quantities become relational. There are no things. There are relations. The definition of a relation depends on additional relations. The book is very clear, but it could go a bit deeper. The book is barely a book: it uses small pages, large font, and space between lines to stretch it to 79 pages of text. It has about 15,600 words; in a normal paperback, it would be 52 pages. The booklet is so thin that the glue binding breaks and pages are loose.

I loved this book as someone without a science background. Esoteric ideas are presented simply and are easy to understand. The book is short enough to distill essential ideas but leaves you wanting to read and learn more. Recommend!

This book is a good reminder of Hawking's classic. Man's highest thought is not reserved for the few, that is what all good expression aims at. There is great simplicity with which modern physics is explained here. The scope of the text is phenomenal. Lessons start with the very basic, and with a gentle quickness, take the reader to the very advanced. Remarkably, no chapter extends beyond a few pages. The whole book is a short scientific saga of eighty pages! "Around the Universe in Eighty Pages" could have another viable title for the book. I have a perception that physics is a way of thinking. The thought that deciphers the mysteries of a black hole is no different than the one that is at play in the day to day relationships. This unity often is clouded due to the precise terminology used by physicists. Tensors and integrals are not always the best way to express universal ideas. And herein comes the importance of Rovelli's books. He bypasses the scientific symbology and represents contemporary physics in a manner that even a fifth-grader can digest. It will be a great success if phrases like space-curvature, standard-model or quantum-gravity become comprehensible to most of us. The design of the book gets full marks. Penguin books have done an outstanding job in the overall presentation of the book. As I already mentioned, it is a short book of 80 pages, and that makes it a perfect companion for a couple hours indulgence into the tale of Universe.

知らない単語が出てくる頻度が少ない そして興味深い 洋書を初めて読む人にもおすすめ

This is indeed, a very brief book of very brief lessons or chapters, and it is intriguing, elusive, seductive and ultimately humbling all at once. I’ll need to read it again several times over. The easy elegance and poetry of the writing deceptively masks a whole world of things being described, and the broader, better lessons aren’t really about physics at all. Hitherto, my last experience with physics was a 2nd semester senior class in high school when, (having been accepted to university), I temporarily lost patience for absorbing further conceptual learning. I did, however, have ample capacity for sniggering at the nerds in the class who were capable of using physics concepts, 3 paper clips and assorted other parts to construct a functioning radio. I read about this book in the Economist. I bought this book, in part, to atone for my high school sins, and also to finally overcome my phobia of the general theory of relativity, I also wanted it as a quick way to get refreshed on key physics concepts in bite size meals. (Besides, everyone really should have their ‘elevator speech’ ready on the meaning of the theory of relativity, right?) This book gave me both more—and less—than I bargained for. I still don’t have my elevator speeches on key physics topics such as relativity, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics or black holes; the lessons are indeed elegant but without sufficient detail to fully master the topics at hand. In fact, if anything, the simplicity and elegance of the book have made me feel even stupider than when I started…”if this Italian Physics professor can describe these things so simply and elegantly, I really must be a half-wit, because I’m still mystified.” (Memo to self: avoid elevators for now.) However, even in its brevity it gives a good deal more. There is the enthusiasm and excitement that imbues the (even brief) descriptions of these concepts. I came away with a genuine desire to go after these topics in successively greater levels of detail, in order to finally conquer them. At the very least I see another series of sessions with a famous Stephen Hawking book in my future. The specific physics topics are only the most obvious level in this slim volume. It also touches both implicitly and explicitly on the nature of scientific enquiry, insights into the current bleeding edge physics theories and how they’re developed, and (lastly) how scientists think. To read about this in such effective but matter-of-fact tones was extremely enlightening. The 7th and final lesson in the book is one which I’ve read three times already, because its so marvelous….a homily by a thoughtful soul on the complexities of the universe, the perceptions and complexities of humans inhabiting their small place in it, and a heartfelt wonder about the ongoing discoveries we have in front of us. The final chapter, “ourselves” really is lovely, and could easily stand alone, with or without the preceding 6 chapters. I’ve given this five stars. Although it didn’t take me where I thought I wanted to go, it took me someplace else, and much better.

A very good summary of the current stage of Physics, with some personal inputs from the author.