Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

by Carlo Rovelli

The work of Einstein was initially treated by colleagues as the nonsensical juvenilia of an exceptionally brilliant youth. Subsequently it was for the same work that he received the Nobel Prize.

During the great period of German idealism, Schelling could think that humanity represented the summit of nature, the highest point, where reality becomes conscious of itself. Today, from the point of view provided by our current knowledge of the natural world, this idea raises a smile.

Well, no, there is nothing about us that can escape the norms of nature. If something in us could infringe the laws of nature we would have discovered it by now. There is nothing in us in violation of the natural behaviour of things.

We are an integral part of nature; we are nature, in one of its innumerable and infinitely variable expressions. This is what we have learnt from our ever-increasing knowledge of the things of this world.