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The Order of Time

Carlo Rovelli

4.07 · Rating details · 8,369 ratings · 1,166 reviews

Penguin presents the audio edition of The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. The best-selling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics takes us on an enchanting journey to discover the meaning of time.

Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different f ...more

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Hardcover, 240 pages

Published May 8th 2018 by Riverhead Books (first published May 2017)

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Apr 26, 2018 Brian Clegg rated it liked it · review of another edition

There's good news and bad news. 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. 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).

It doesn't help either th There's good news and bad news. 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. 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).

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. Time and again (pun intended) he tells us time doesn't exist, then makes use of it. 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. 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.

The wofflyness often gets in the way of understanding. For example, when talking about the second law of thermodynamics and entropy, he claims (I think - it's difficult to tell exactly what he is claiming) that the only reason we perceive the arrow of time from the increase of entropy is the way we label things. The implication is that, for example, the atoms in your body are no more ordered than the atoms in a scrambled mess - it's just that it's easier to see the order in your body because on the scale of atoms everything is blurred, but if we could see every atom exactly, whatever configuration they would be in would itself be unique. It sounds impressive, but skips over the way that fundamental quantum particles are indistinguishable. The arrangement of the cloud of atoms is only unique if you can tell one hydrogen atom (say) from another.

This is rather a shame, as Rovelli covers a considerable amount in what is a distinctly short book (though, thankfully, you get more for your money than in Seven Brief Lessons). Amongst other things, Rovelli passingly covers the special and general theories of relativity, thermodynamics and, of course, loop quantum gravity. And it's particularly frustrating because his attempt to put across the idea that it’s better to model reality in terms of events rather than things is a very powerful one which isn't often seen in popular science - but the message could easily be lost in the confusion. You come away with very little information - far more that rapidly disappearing odour.

I've no doubt this book should do well for those who are impressed that a physicist can refer to Proust. But I like a popular science book with significantly more meat in it, rather than vague impressions. ...more

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Dec 16, 2018 Manuel Antão rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

Time is in Reality's Blurring: "The Order of Time" by Carlo Rovelli

In some ways, Rovelli's writing is as influenced by Calvino as it is by Einstein or Feynman - this is not simply writing in the tradition of explicating or popularising scientific inquiry; but rather writing which seeks to open new spaces of possibility for thinking through the very endeavour of the writing itself. There does ...more

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Aug 10, 2018 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018-shelf, science, metaphysics

Take two. Time has swallowed my review. My first one anyway.

I wish I could take back the time, do it over, but entropy hit GR (or at least my internet connection) and something less than the total heat-death of the universe made me realign my perceptions of reality and time.

Oh, wait. That was this book!

Half historical science, some equations, the theoretical underpinnings of quantum loop theory, the role of entropy and heat in the determination of what makes T ...more

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May 28, 2018 Brendan Monroe rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science, audiobook, time, non-fiction

It rules over each and every one of us, but is there any greater mystery in life than time? What even is time?

Carlo Rovelli sets out to explain just that question in his latest book, "The Order of Time". Rovelli's explanation of time isn't always clear - there were many moments where I lost the thread - but it is beautiful. For a theoretical physicist, Rovelli is wonderfully poetic. It certainly helps that the audiobook is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, whose deeply rich voice lends It rules over each and every one of us, but is there any greater mystery in life than time? What even is time?

Carlo Rovelli sets out to explain just that question in his latest book, "The Order of Time". Rovelli's explanation of time isn't always clear - there were many moments where I lost the thread - but it is beautiful. For a theoretical physicist, Rovelli is wonderfully poetic. It certainly helps that the audiobook is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, whose deeply rich voice lends Rovelli's words added impact. As a result, this is one of the few books that's actually better listened to.

Just imagine Cumberbatch reading the following:

"Things in themselves are only events that, for a while, are monotonous. But only before returning to dust... the absence of time does not mean, therefore, that everything is frozen and unmoving, it means that the incessant happening that wearies the world is not ordered along a timeline, is not measured by a gigantic tic-tocking... it is a boundless and disorderly network of quantum events. The world is more like Naples than Singapore. If by "time" we mean nothing more than happening, then everything is time. There is only that which exists in time."

That's beautiful, even if I don't quite fully understand it.

Rovelli also quotes a beautiful passage by Hugo von Hofmannsthal from the famous aria in Richard Strauss' opera, "Der Rosenkavelier". It's an ode to the passing of time, and it's one of the most somber passages I've ever heard. It's titled "Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar ding", in English, "Time Is Weird".

"I remember a little girl, but how can that be? Once I was that little girl, and then I became an old woman. If God wills it so, why allow me to see it? Why doesn't he hide it from me? Everything is a mystery. Such a deep mystery. I feel the fragility of things in time. From the bottom of my heart, I feel we should cling to nothing. Everything slips through our fingers. All that we seek to hold onto dissolves. Everything vanishes like mist and dreams. Time is a strange thing. When we don't need it, it is nothing. Then suddenly, there is nothing else. It is everywhere around us, also within us. It seeps into our faces. It seeps into the mirror. Runs through my temples. Between you and I, it runs silently like an hourglass. Sometimes I feel it flowing inexorably, sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and stop all the clocks."

Like time itself, I often felt the words of Rovelli's "The Order of Time" vanishing from my mind nearly as soon as I read them. Such beautiful words, even if they left me far too quickly. ...more

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Aug 03, 2019 Bharath rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Time has always been an enigma – with philosophers and even scientists calling it an illusion. And, Carlo Rovelli tells us that it is increasingly appearing to be so. A topic which without doubt captures your attention & is very intellectually stimulating. It would have been an exceptional book, but in parts struggles between being a book for everybody vs being a book of serious science. I have observed many science books do run into this issue – and it is quite obviously a difficult balance Time has always been an enigma – with philosophers and even scientists calling it an illusion. And, Carlo Rovelli tells us that it is increasingly appearing to be so. A topic which without doubt captures your attention & is very intellectually stimulating. It would have been an exceptional book, but in parts struggles between being a book for everybody vs being a book of serious science. I have observed many science books do run into this issue – and it is quite obviously a difficult balance to achieve.

The start gets you immediately hooked with the description of how time moves slower at lower altitudes than higher altitudes. When you fall, you are actually tending to go towards the place where time moves slower. The advances in our understanding of time makes for very interesting reading with the big breakthrough coming with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein’s concept of the spacetime fabric affected by mass as well as speed completely changed how time was viewed. This also brings into question what we really mean by present – which really holds only here and is highly localized. The present somewhere else – on a different planet for instance is known to us much later and may mean nothing.

It makes sense for the universe to be seen as a series of events, rather than as objects interacting with each other. Objects are a logical outcome of events and quite possibly so is time - a result of a change of entropy rather than something which passes by objects. There has been progress in creating theories & models of the universe without time. The Loop Quantum theory is discussed – which Carlo is personally involved with as well.

The later part of the book discusses the practical uses of time – emerging out of a universe which does not really need time to explain it.

This is a book which will kindle your curiosity to think and read more about time theories. There are vague & incomplete references to Vedanta & Lord Shiva from Hindu philosophy. Despite the inconsistent treatment – oscillating between simple language and more detail, this is a book to read, for the fascinating topic it explores.

It is not a big book and will not take you too much time to read. Oh well, it will not be that easy to banish time from my mind yet though 😊

My rating: 3.75 / 5.
...more

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Dec 02, 2018 Alice Lippart rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2018

My brain hurts and I love it.

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May 08, 2018 Rama rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: cosmology, science, physics, physical-reality

Time is an Illusion, says physicist Carlo Rovelli

Physicists calling time an illusion is not a new idea. Julian Barbour, in his 1999 book argued for the same hypothesis. Contrary to this idea, physicist Lee Smolin proposed that time is real. He suggested that laws of physics are not fixed in the universe but evolve over time. The principle argument in support of his theory is that mathematical models provide an abstraction of reality and ignore time dimension. Carlo Rovelli observes that since t Time is an Illusion, says physicist Carlo Rovelli

Physicists calling time an illusion is not a new idea. Julian Barbour, in his 1999 book argued for the same hypothesis. Contrary to this idea, physicist Lee Smolin proposed that time is real. He suggested that laws of physics are not fixed in the universe but evolve over time. The principle argument in support of his theory is that mathematical models provide an abstraction of reality and ignore time dimension. Carlo Rovelli observes that since theory of general relativity assumes spacetime is smooth and continuous, and quantum theory describes matter and energy in discrete quantities which implies that spacetime is also quantized. i.e. they exist in discrete quanta. These two realities are unconnected because quantum physics cannot deal with the continuous spacetime, and general relativity cannot reconcile with quantization of space and time. In fact, space, time and gravity are suggested as emergent properties of a system. Emergent properties are not identical with, reducible to, or deducible from the other physical properties. Examples include, temperature, pressure, viscosity, spacetime and gravity. Therefore, the author concludes that Isaac Newton’s picture of a universally ticking clock, and Albert Einstein’s relativistic space-time that bends so that local times differ depending on one’s relative speed or proximity to a mass is an over simplification. According to Rovelli, the time; the sequences of past, present and future is an emergent phenomenon of thermodynamics.

One of the principal arguments Rovelli advances is the Wheeler-De Witt equation which describes quantum gravity, but it has no time variable associated with it. Quantum mechanics and general relativity, taken together, imply the possibility of quantum superposition of different spacetimes. But the Wheeler-de Witt equation, which is based on a wave function Ψ[q] over geometries offers new perspectives.

In this book, Rovelli often muses about metaphysics, poetry and spirituality but fails to convince the reader that his idea is on the right track. It reminds me of Einstein’s famous saying that “God does not play dice,” Which makes me believe that if time is an illusion, then space would also be an illusion. There is a beauty and symmetry in the universe, and time alone could not be an illusion without space. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Mars explorer suggest that this universe is a computer simulation on someone’s computer. And black hole physics suggests that the information in 3D world could be described in 2D dimension, in fact reality is a hologram. In quantum reality, the wave functions of a reality must be collapsed by physical observation (conscious observers), until then the reality is smeared out in spacetime. In fact, reality is in the eyes of beholder. Taken together, reality of matter and energy in spacetime could be an illusion (Maya), as interpreted by the Vedanta School of Hindu philosophy. ...more

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May 18, 2018 Monika rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018, non-fiction

I'm not sure if I understood all of it, but it was beautiful nonetheless. It can definitely provoke an existential crisis or two. I really recommend the audio book, Benedict Cumberbatch did an amazing job!

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Jul 25, 2018 Holly rated it liked it

Shelves: audio, 2018-reads

I suspect that these Carlo Rovelli books are popular because they are short and imaginative! The first half of The Order of Time was clear and thought-provoking. But the second half went a little off the rails and I'm not sure it all even made sense. (His science is sound, I assume, but what about his metaphysical speculations ?) My mind kept wandering as I was lulled by Benedict Cumberbatch's voice (which reminded me of Neil Gaiman's hypnotic audiobook narrations). I amused myself by imagining ...more

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Sep 02, 2019 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, science-september, read2019

My first read of #scienceseptember (2019) was a bit of a mind blowing experience, with physics meeting philosophy for a discussion of time. I barely grasped the concepts that were already dumbed down for a layperson - the absence of a "present," how time and entropy relate, equations without time, etc. But I did meet my goal of reading more than just nature stuff for the theme!

"In order to exit from a black hole, you would need to move toward the present rather than toward the future ...more

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May 16, 2018 Terry Pearce rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is without a doubt the best science book I've ever read. Possibly the best book I've ever read. It takes something (Time) that is ultra-important to us all and really tough to think about, and, in graceful language and thoughtful structure, explains first how everything we think we know about it on a day to day basis is wrong, and then how we can think about it in a way that is profound and useful. Along the way, he ties it in with the deepest core of what it is to be a human being, alive, ...more

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Oct 13, 2019 Camelia Rose rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, audio

This is probably the hardest book I've listened. The concise yet poetic language and Benedict Cumberbatch's deeply affective voice keep me going. It is 4 hours 20 minutes long. I listened twice, doing my best to "get" as much as I can.

The first part of the book describes well-established aspects of time in physics that have been repetitively proved by carefully conducted experiments--gravitational time dilation and relative velocity time dilation, i.e. time passes slower nearer to a mass, faste This is probably the hardest book I've listened. The concise yet poetic language and Benedict Cumberbatch's deeply affective voice keep me going. It is 4 hours 20 minutes long. I listened twice, doing my best to "get" as much as I can.

The first part of the book describes well-established aspects of time in physics that have been repetitively proved by carefully conducted experiments--gravitational time dilation and relative velocity time dilation, i.e. time passes slower nearer to a mass, faster farer away from a mass, faster at lower speed and slower at higher speed. Then it goes deeper, much deeper. It dismantles what we, non physicists, think we know about time: something flows uniformly, equally throughout the universe in the course of which all things happen, and reality flows from the past, to the present and towards the future. According the book, the present that is common throughout the whole universe does not exist...There is "present" that is near to us, but nothing is present in a far away galaxy...The present is localized rather universal...The difference between past and future does not exist in the elementary equations that govern the world.

A large part of the book talks about Thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics states total entropy of an isolated system can only increase over time, where "time" is the asymmetrical, one-directional process and what we "perceive" as time. The concepts of Thermal Time and Quanta Time have lost on me. I do not even attempt to understand Loop Theory and Spin Networks (which are the author's fields.)

The universe starts at a lower entropy (a particular configuration, ordered), and gradually moves towards higher entropy (less ordered), but what is considered ordered, what is not? To explain, the author uses the analogy of cards shuffling. There are actually infinite possibilities of the order of cards, similar to the universe. However, we can not "see" (does the author mean we, the conscious being, the classical entity, to see with our eyes?) the infinite details of things, of the infinite happenings in the world, can not grasp the infinite possibilities and combinations, instead, we can only "see" what we are able to "see". The universe starts at a lower entropy because in our blurred "vision", that's the particular configuration we are associated with. No, I don't think I truly understand, but I am fascinated by the theory. Also this: In a system where time does not exist, change is ubiquitous. And this: The universe is a collection of events, not things, and not ordered by time.

The last two chapters are quite philosophical. Indeed, new development in modern philosophy comes from theoretical physics and neuroscience. The impermanence of the universe described in the book complies with Buddhism's world view. The author discusses what makes "I", the conscious being. He sees memory is one of the three elements that makes one the one.

“Because everything that begins must end. What causes us to suffer is not in the past or the future: it is here, now, in our memory, in our expectations. We long for timelessness, we endure the passing of time: we suffer time. Time is suffering.”

“I am my mother’s caresses, and the serene kindness with which my father calmly guided me; I am my adolescent travels; I am what my reading has deposited in layers in my mind; I am my loves, my moments of despair, my friendships, what I’ve written, what I’ve heard; the faces engraved on my memory. I am, above all, the one who a minute ago made a cup of tea for himself. The one who a moment ago typed the word “memory” into his computer. The one who just composed the sentence that I am now completing. If all this disappeared, would I still exist? I am this long, ongoing novel. My life consists of it.”

...more

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Jun 09, 2018 Veronica rated it really liked it

One star lost. Either I am simply in a bitter mood tonight, or the last thirty-seven minutes of this audiobook were depressing and existentially soul-crushing. Everything vanishes. Time is suffering. We suffer because we can't hold onto things. This is not physics?! Physics isn't supposed to be depressing; that's philosophy. I do wish he had perhaps confined himself to loop quantum gravity. I might as well next read Buddha's teachings tonight. Desire is suffering. Then Schopenhauer. Will is suff ...more

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Aug 02, 2019 Ed Erwin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science, nonfiction

The parts summarizing relativity and QM and their implications relative to the concept of time are very well done. When he comes to describing the sort of thing he himself works on, loop quantum gravity, it gets too vague and hand-wavey to make much sense.

PS: This website refused to allow me to put a start date later than the date finished which proves that there is an order of time.

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Sep 18, 2018 Mary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

“This is time for us: a multilayered, complex concept with multiple, distinct properties deriving from various different approximations.” Page 198.

The Public Library only allowed me 7 days to read this book with no renewals. So Time was a problem from the beginning. Nevertheless, I plowed through and finishing tonight, I ended up buying the Kindle Version.

There is much to contemplate and digest in this book. A reread at some point in Time is in order. Reading this work, you will encounter expl ...more

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May 02, 2019 Andy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Excellent narration by Benedict Cumberbatch. The universe is events. Good to think about this mind bending stuff now and then.

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May 19, 2018 Murtaza rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was looking for a book about the philosophy of time, but found this one instead which is more of a physics book about the contemporary state of science on the subject. Despite not being exactly what I was looking for, Rovelli does a great job of laying out the present state of knowledge about what "time" really is in the universe and how it functions. Contrary to our limited perception, time is a far more relative and ephemeral phenomenon than we like to imagine. It is also better described as ...more

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Jun 20, 2019 Romanas rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nature, philosophy, science

The nature of time is one of the greatest open mysteries of the universe. How time actually works? Do humans exist in time or time exists in humans? How time passes? There are many questions related to a complex subject as time to ask, and answers are few. Carlo Rovelli, an Italian theoretical physicist, who spent a lifetime studying this subject, tries to reveal mysteries of time and he brings the reader closer to possible answers regarding time.

Among other very interesting things, ...more

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Aug 21, 2018 Thomas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science, read_2018

All I can say is that this book is delightful and amazing. I'll need to return to it again and again so I can keep absorbing what Rovelli has to share.

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May 24, 2018 Abu Hayat Khan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science

I’m not a fan of supercars, but what I know is that Italy doesn’t make the most powerful sports car, yet they have the sexiest car imaginable by a human mind. there is something very special about Italian culture of art. and I can feel the same artisan in every chapter of this book. this book is about a dry but interesting aspect of the universe called "time". unlike other popular books in this subject matter, Italian art turned the whole physics discussion into a poetry. I think I can listen to I’m not a fan of supercars, but what I know is that Italy doesn’t make the most powerful sports car, yet they have the sexiest car imaginable by a human mind. there is something very special about Italian culture of art. and I can feel the same artisan in every chapter of this book. this book is about a dry but interesting aspect of the universe called "time". unlike other popular books in this subject matter, Italian art turned the whole physics discussion into a poetry. I think I can listen to this audiobook a few times more without getting bored.

it is a tiny little book, but it has blown my mind, not because of Mr. Revelli’s Lamborghini style writing but for his deep inside on this subject. time has a special feature known as the arrow of time. there is only one known physical phenomenon that also has such sense of direction, we call it "heat". as the time flows only from past to future, so does the heat flows only from hot to cold. for some time now, it has been speculated that time has something to do with the heat. since Boltzmann's time, this relation is known to be the entropy (though the term entropy was not coined by him). entropy refers to the subatomic arrangement of a system, Mr. Rovelli argued that ignoring each and every subatomic change of a system, which he dubbed as “blurring” the entropy, give rise to time. in other words, if we could calculate and compare all entropic states of the universe then there would be no time. the comparison of one entropic state (let's say, hot) to another (let's say, cold) is known as thermal time.

of course, the human brain cannot cope up with such incredulous task of tracking each and every subatomic entity of the environment, rather evolution had found a shortcut, we call it perspective time. our brain ignores the microscopic details of any system, but keep track of macroscopic states in a sequential order, this order is the human-perceived time. this is the reason, you are still the one who you think you were twenty years ago, although all of your molecules has been replaced during this period. brian is an ingenious evolutionary machine that keeps track of events without any knowledge of entropy. at the same time, it is the victim of its own ingenuity: the illusion of time.

what surprising is that blurring of entropy which was postulated by Boltzmann is the same as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. i.e. the uncertainty of momentum and position of a subatomic particle prevent us from pinpointing the precise entropic state of any system, hence the blurring of entropy is also a quantum phenomenon. which means, time is not just the direction of heat transfer, it is also the manifestation of the uncertainty in the quantum world.

I think I should stop here, rather you should read this tiny little amazing book. ...more

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Jun 23, 2019 Bandit rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This book did a number on my brain. And I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed Rovelli’s previous Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, so I should have been ready, but no. Then again this was a different beast. Physics are in general not entirely my bag, it’s a sort of thing to force feed to the mind to maintain a well balanced active diet, but usually I do ok. This one managed to repeatedly get away from me, sentences were read and reared, ideas pondered and contemplated. And yet…for all that reading, wha This book did a number on my brain. And I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed Rovelli’s previous Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, so I should have been ready, but no. Then again this was a different beast. Physics are in general not entirely my bag, it’s a sort of thing to force feed to the mind to maintain a well balanced active diet, but usually I do ok. This one managed to repeatedly get away from me, sentences were read and reared, ideas pondered and contemplated. And yet…for all that reading, what’s left is that time in an illusion, time doesn’t exist on fundamental level, time is directly related to entropy, it is through entropy and just about only through entropy that one can know and understand the concept of time such as it is. And, of yeah, all’s relative, thanks Einstein. That doesn’t seem enough of a reward for reading the book. Definitely not enough information. Rovelli, actually, is a lovely writer and he tends to wax poetic on his subjects at length, but here it seemed to be at cost to learning. Too many examples saying the same thing. And in the end too much of the same thing. In fact, you can probably just read the last chapter, which is a summary of sorts, and walk away accomplished. And I admit, this review may say more about a specific reader’s aptitude and intellectual vigor than the book itself, after all so many here on GR seem to have loved the book, but that’s what reviews are, aren’t they…specific reader’s thoughts on their reading experiences. And my reading experiences of this book was frustrating, exhausting and not overly rewarding. Definitely didn’t get that good workout, brain, thing nonfiction usually provides. Rovelli is quite possibly a genius, certainly exceptionally smart and knowledgeable in his field, he has plenty to say on the subject, but when he gets too technical, it’s too difficult to follow without specific knowledge of physics and when he waxes poetic, it’s too ephemeral to learn from. Overall, this seemed much more of a meditation on the nature of time than a scientific perspective on time. And as much as I wanted to love the book that uses smurfs for diagrams, I was unable to. In fact it managed to induce a peculiar mental stupor, which ended up wasting some of the precious, precious time. Good thing it was short at least. Obviously, user mileage may vary. ...more

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Sep 11, 2018 Loring Wirbel rated it liked it · review of another edition

Carlo Rovelli is staring right down the center of avenues I find fascinating, attempting a detailed description of what Ted Chiang explored in his short story that became the film Arrival starring Amy Adams. If we are beings living in four dimensions, why do we perceive the fourth as a sequential arrow moving in only one direction? And, as Amy's character learns as the fate of her daughter becomes clear, is a wider perception of time a sort of forbidden fruit from Eden's apple tree? Rovelli certainly w Carlo Rovelli is staring right down the center of avenues I find fascinating, attempting a detailed description of what Ted Chiang explored in his short story that became the film Arrival starring Amy Adams. If we are beings living in four dimensions, why do we perceive the fourth as a sequential arrow moving in only one direction? And, as Amy's character learns as the fate of her daughter becomes clear, is a wider perception of time a sort of forbidden fruit from Eden's apple tree? Rovelli certainly wants to provide his thoughts in an interesting, meandering, Buddhist-like structure. The result is certainly preferable to Hawkings' A Brief History of Time, though only insofar as it attempts to analyze human perceptions of time. Still, his book isn't quite as fully satisfying as one might hope, in the same way that Roger Penrose can't fully explain consciousness by calling upon some magical quantum element. If Rovelli or Penrose were to work in collaboration with a leading cognitive-neuroscience philosopher like Daniel Dennett or Sam Harris, the result might be more satisfying. Maybe a physicist can take us only part of the way there.

Here's where Rovelli does a good job: He explains early on why there is no universal notion of "present time," and how each concept of the present must be tied to a local consciousness perceiving events. In this regard, and in the way he dismisses Descartes for suggesting the mind's major task is analyzing its own existence, Rovelli follows Lakoff and Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh, when the two authors suggest that there are no abstract ideas or forms outside of the emergent intelligence arising from sentient bodies. Similarly, Rovelli says there is no flow of time outside the body experiencing it.

Rovelli is big on the concept of "blurring," and I totally follow him here. Humans blur the notion of probability wave fronts from the microscopic quantum world in order to perceive solid objects like rocks and other people. The macroscopic objects are not so much real, as a blurred approximation. In the same way, we blur the infinite possibilities of thermal time and entropy to collapse all possibilities into the temporal flow we perceive. The structure of our short-term and long-term distributed memories determine that we will find "traces" of past events that steer us into perceiving a one-way flow of time, because the future probabilities have not collapsed to form similar memory traces. There might be a way to grasp each moment from birth to death simultaneously with our limited minds, but we'd be drinking from a firehose that would offer few clues as to how to collapse wave fronts. Hence the nature of the "Amy Adams problem" of Arrival - it may be feasible to know the lifelong "light cone" traces of our loved ones, but that could also be a path to madness.

If Rovelli had expanded this element with a little bit more hints from the field of cognitive neuroscience, this whimsical book might have won an instant four or five stars. It's certainly intriguing, and a step in the right direction. Rovelli's final chapter, 'The Sister of Sleep,' urges the reader to accept death and finite perceptual limits in the same way one accepts the heat death of the universe. Short-term "local minima" of low entropy are special cases in a universe inevitably moving to greater entropy. He quotes Ecclesiastes to say "Then the song fades and ceases. 'The silver thread is broken, the golden bowl is shattered, the amphora at the fountain breaks, the bucket falls into the well, the earth returns to dust.' And it is fine like this. We can all close our eyes, rest. This all seems fair and beautiful to me. This is time."

It is a touching ego-dissolving final message in a heavy book with a light touch. Now that Rovelli has opened the door further, I hope new collaborations of physicists and neuroscientists will offer broader descriptions to dispel the mystery of human perception of time. ...more

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Sep 20, 2018 Ellison rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

I’ve been looking for a that book tries to explain what time is. This book does that. I found the attempt entertaining but not very convincing, or even clearly stated.
Roveli is not trying to sum up the various scientific theories but to present his own ideas, first as a physicist and then as a philosopher.
Lots of metaphors and musings:
“The difference between things and events is that things persist in time; events have a limited duration. A stone is a prototypical ‘thing’: we can ...more

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Jun 26, 2018 Weisser rated it did not like it

this book fails as wannabe poetry, it fails as explanation of quantum loop gravity, it fails as an extended essay, it fails as memoir, it fails as philosophy, it fails as history, it fails at everything it resembles and then some. jesus fucking christ i hate this author and this further piece of evidence in the fucking full-to-the-brim cosmic shitstadium of the same that white male physicists are the goddamn worst.

oh and thank the lord i didn't decide to have the right honorable b. c ...more

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Jun 30, 2018 Katy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This was a total snooze fest, some parts were interesting and clear enough for a lay person to understand, but most of it was just unintelligible to me and quickly lost my interest.

It’s far too technical and it’s not explained simply enough for someone like me who knows nothing about theoretical physics. So sadly I couldn’t really enjoy this book and I really wanted it to blow my mind. Such a shame.

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May 14, 2018 Natasha at Book Baristas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

so so so good

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Apr 23, 2019 Rossdavidh rated it liked it

Shelves: black

Like a lot of young nerds, I had a period of fascination with advanced physics. Never enough to actually become all that good at it, mind you. I just about wrapped my brain around the wave-particle duality, in order to get my degree in Electrical Engineering. I took one course on Relativity. I found it all to be fascinating, and also really, really hard. There were other people, for whom it was equally fascinating, but more like "fun" than "hard". I was not one of those people.

The pr Like a lot of young nerds, I had a period of fascination with advanced physics. Never enough to actually become all that good at it, mind you. I just about wrapped my brain around the wave-particle duality, in order to get my degree in Electrical Engineering. I took one course on Relativity. I found it all to be fascinating, and also really, really hard. There were other people, for whom it was equally fascinating, but more like "fun" than "hard". I was not one of those people.

The primary benefit to me of having taken those courses as a youngster, was not that it did me the slightest bit of good whatsoever in my professional life in the semiconductor industry. It turns out that, truth be told, you don't have to be all that good at physics to make semiconductors, or even to test circuits made of them, or even to improve processes for making them. Perhaps you have to be really good at physics to invent them in the first place, but that was not a task I ever had to accomplish.

No, the primary benefit was that, when someone invoked quantum physics or relativity to bolster their hand-wavy philosophy, I could recognize that they didn't know what they were talking about. There is, it turns out, nothing in quantum physics or relativity that proves or disproves anybody's idea about God, the meaning of life, whether there is an objective reality, or where consciousness comes from. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying, or just projecting their hopes onto the deeply unintuitive world of the very small or very fast.

Still, Rovelli is himself a professional, one of those people who does actually know a lot more about physics than I do, and his book had two other things going for it. One, it was short, and a nice compact size. Two, it had a goodly amount of pictures. When I read something like advanced physics, the reality is I'm not ready to go through 800 pages' worth, and I need some diagrams, or sketches, or graphs, or something besides a wall of text with the occasional equation.

It turns out that Rovelli is also apparently quite good at explaining things. It may have helped some that I had learned some of the early parts of the book before, but it had been decades, and I found myself wishing that he had been the guy writing my college physics textbooks, or perhaps teaching the classes. But then, it may also be that reading about physics for fun, is a lot more enjoyable than taking a test on it, which is going to be curved to guarantee that around 25% of the class gets a failing grade.

Rovelli's thesis seems to be, that time is not a fundamental part of reality in the way that, say, mass or electromagnetism is. Rather, it is more like perspective. He claims that this is actually the pre-Newtonian, Aristotelian way of thinking about time. Time is nothing other than the order in which we experience things. Rovelli's claim (which I am unable to really evaluate the truth of), is that the modern idea of time as a dimension is Newton's, and while it may have been a reasonable operating assumption for him at that, uh, time, it isn't the literal truth. Just as quantum physics and relativity have upended other parts of Newton's worldview, Rovelli says that they have returned us to a pre-Newtonian, Aristotelian idea of time.

One is reminded of the saying, "time is what keeps everything from happening at once". Rovelli seems to be saying something more like, time is the order in which we perceive things as happening. If we are all, relative to one another, moving at very low speeds (compared to the speed of light in a vacuum), then we never notice that my time is different than yours. Once you think about the very fast, very big, or very small, our intuitions don't work.

There was also some stuff about entropy in there.

To be honest, if I really wanted to understand what Rovelli was saying here, in depth, well enough to pass a test on it, I would need to read it again. And you know, I just might do that. But not yet, because I am once again in the blessed position of being able to read about physics for exactly as much as I feel like, and neither more nor less. I believe that it is true for me, anyway, that a little more time should pass before I reread this one.

It was pretty good, though, so perhaps not too much time. ...more

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Jul 06, 2018 Allison Hiltz rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-and-psychology, non-fiction, translated, 2018

Originally reviewed at The Book Wheel.

Consider the following: time passes faster in the mountains than it does at sea level. If this sentence confounds you but piques your interest, then I can already tell you that you want to read The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, which answers questions such as what is time? Is there a universal time? What does it mean to live in the present? Does the present exist?

Turns out, these are simple questions with no easy answers because time is complicated. I Originally reviewed at The Book Wheel.

Consider the following: time passes faster in the mountains than it does at sea level. If this sentence confounds you but piques your interest, then I can already tell you that you want to read The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, which answers questions such as what is time? Is there a universal time? What does it mean to live in the present? Does the present exist?

Turns out, these are simple questions with no easy answers because time is complicated. I don’t mean that timezones are confusing or that time passing faster in the mountains is perplexing, but that at an elemental level, time doesn’t even exist the way we think it does.

Luckily, The Order of Time takes an approachable, scientific look at these questions and explores ideas rooted in quantum physics, thermodynamics, and the human condition. It will expand your mind, confuse the heck out of you, and, if you’re like me, leave you pondering some pretty heavy philosophical conundrums.

One thing I learned that does make sense is that there is no now because now is just the perception of time. By the time we perceive something happening, nanoseconds have already passed. This means that everything we do, think, say, or hear exists both in the past and the present depending on if you’re saying it or hearing it. In other words, time is so fleeting we’re more or less living in the future as much as we are the present. For example, I can ask what you’re doing right now (reading this sentence) but by the time you process the words I have written, the act of reading it is in the past. WHAT?!

Taking this one step further, this also means two people are never actually in the same place at the same time. I can speak to you, but by the time you perceive my actions, I am already living in the past. Throw in timezones and it’s easy to see why there’s no true, universal time. Time exists in relativity. Perhaps the author says it best when he said, “Physics does not describe how things evolve “in time” but how things evolve in their own times, and how “times” evolve relative to each other.”

This relativity also applies to what it means to exist. One example The Order of Time gives is the emergence of teams. A group of children can line up and pick teams, one by one, for a soccer game. This new team doesn’t already exist, but it emerges and then does exist because different entities combine to make it so. So if you can create something out of nothing, what does that mean for the whole of existence? And is existence all relative? Some might say that a literary character doesn’t exist, as in they are not “real”, but yet they do exist, if even in our collective minds. Existence, Rovelli argues, is grammatical: “Words such as “here,” “now,” “I,” “this,” “tonight” all assume a different meaning depending on who utters them and the circumstances in which they are uttered.”

Philosophical pondering aside, Rovelli explains all of this by rooting it in science. He tackles major scientific theories of time, from Aristotle’s belief that time measures change to Newton’s idea that time is independent of us. He discusses entropy and how it evolves over time, linking it to the laws of thermodynamics and quantum physics.

Yet despite this heavy reading, there’s a romantic quality to The Order of Time. Because in the end, it’s all about how we, as humans, perceive time. It is our own “blurred vision” that shapes how we see the world. We are made up of our experiences, traces, and narratives, and each is unique to us. And although the following quote isn’t about time, per se, it does speak to the larger question of whether the absence of something exists: “But it isn’t absence that causes sorrow. It is affection and love. Without affection, without love, such absences would cause us no pain. For this reason, even the pain caused by absence is, in the end, something good and even beautiful, because it feeds on that which gives meaning to life.” ...more

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Jun 30, 2018 Richard Thompson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: physics

I have read a lot of popular physics books and many of them just go over the same ground, but this one was a bit new and different. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of relativity is comfortable with the idea that time passes at different rates depending on the relative velocities of two observers, but Rovelli takes us a step further -- it is not just the rate at which time passes that depends on point of view, it is time itself. Rovelli starts by showing how time and entropy are intimately r I have read a lot of popular physics books and many of them just go over the same ground, but this one was a bit new and different. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of relativity is comfortable with the idea that time passes at different rates depending on the relative velocities of two observers, but Rovelli takes us a step further -- it is not just the rate at which time passes that depends on point of view, it is time itself. Rovelli starts by showing how time and entropy are intimately related as the only physical concepts which have an irreversible forward arrow pointing to the future. He then explains how the level of entropy of a system is a function of point of view -- whether a given system is disordered depends on how order is defined (I remember telling my stepmother when I was a teenager that my room was neat because I could find everything I needed in the mess.) If time is a function of entropy and entropy depends on point of view, then perhaps time does too. Time, like entropy, becomes a function of blurring, of uncertainty about things that we do not or cannot measure. Hmmmm. At the very least it is an intriguing idea; maybe it is even true. Perhaps it only appears to us that the universe must have started with the Big Bang and may end with entropic heat death because of what time and entropy look like to us from our localized point of view. So there is no universal physical truth, or at least not one that depends on space and time, which turn out to be localized concepts. But perhaps there are universal concepts for how things relate to one another that are not built into a fixed unchanging view of space and time and that can therefore give us a broad picture of the universe. Rovelli teases us with the assertion that his field, loop quantum gravity, manages to take time out of the most basic equations of the universe, but he doesn't try to explain how, probably because it is too complex for a popular book.

I enjoyed this book as an audiobook with a dazzlingly good narration by Benedict Cumberbatch. Sometimes science books are better enjoyed in print editions, but this one worked quite well in audio. The quality of the writing is excellent and clear. The explanations of scientific ideas are not simple but they are comprenhensible even for a person with a limited background in physics and no math. And the rich, expressive voice of Mr. Cumberbatch makes the experience complete. ...more

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May 04, 2019 Charly rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone.

This was a spur of the moment pick up to listen to in the car. There are complexities that go beyond my science back ground but it was interesting to hear the various interpretations of the measurement of time and the fact that it really can't be done.

The basic thesis is that in each instant time has changed and present has moved to past. While we have established conventions for measuring time apparently in the scientific world it can not be done.

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About Carlo Rovelli

Carlo Rovelli

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Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy and the USA, and currently works in France. His work is mainly in the field of quantum gravity, where he is among the founders of the loop quantum gravity theory. He has also worked in the history and philosophy of science. He collaborates regularly with several Italian newspapers, in particular the cultural suppl ...more

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Quotes from The Order of Time

“This is time for us. Memory. A nostalgia. The pain of absence. But it isn't absence that causes sorrow. It is affection and love. Without affection, without love, such absences would cause us no pain.
For this reason, even the pain caused by absence is in the end something good and even beautiful. Because it feeds on that which gives meaning to life.” — 22 likes

“If I ask whether two events—one on Earth and the other on Proxima b—are happening “at the same moment,” the correct answer would be: “It’s a question that doesn’t make sense, because there is no such thing as ‘the same moment’ definable in the universe.” The “present of the universe” is meaningless.” — 11 likes

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