Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity

by Carlo Rovelli

The search for knowledge is not nourished by certainty: it is nourished by a radical distrust in certainty.

It is not science that is disturbed by religion: there are certain religions that are disturbed by scientific thinking.

To live with uncertainty may be difficult. There are those who prefer any certainty, even if unfounded, to the uncertainty that comes from recognizing our own limits. There are some who prefer to believe in a story just because it was believed by the tribe’s ancestors, rather than bravely accept uncertainty. Ignorance can be scary. Out of fear, we can tell ourselves calming stories: up there beyond the stars there is an enchanted garden, with a gentle father who will welcome us into his arms. It doesn’t matter if this is true—it is reassuring.

There is always, in this world, someone who pretends to tell us the ultimate answers. The world is full of people who say that they have The Truth. Because they have got it from the fathers; they have read it in a Great Book; they have received it directly from a god; they have found it in the depths of themselves. There is always someone who has the presumption to be the depository of Truth, neglecting to notice that the world is full of other depositories of Truth, each one with his own real Truth, different from that of the others. There is always some prophet dressed in white, uttering the words: “Follow me, I am the true way.”

What was God doing before creating the world? He was preparing Hell for those who seek to scrutinize deep mysteries.

To seek to look further, to go further, seems to me to be one of the splendid things that give sense to life. Like loving, or looking at the sky. The curiosity to learn, to discover, to look over the next hill, the desire to taste the apple: these are the things that make us human.

The world is more extraordinary and profound than any of the fables told by our forefathers. I want to go and see it. To accept uncertainty doesn’t detract from our sense of mystery. On the contrary: we are immersed in the mystery and the beauty of the world. The world revealed by quantum gravity is a new and strange one—still full of mystery, but coherent with its simple and clear beauty.