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

by Carlo Rovelli

It may appear strange and difficult to think of discrete elementary entities not in space and time, but weaving space and time with their relations. But how strange it must have seemed to listen to Anaximander, when he claimed that beneath our feet there was only the same sky that we can see above our heads? Or to Aristarchus, when he tried to measure the distance of the moon and the sun, discovering that they are extremely distant, and are therefore not the size of little balls, but gigantic—and the sun is immense compared to Earth. Or to Hubble, when he realized that the small diaphanous clouds between stars are vast seas of immensely distant stars. For centuries the world has continued to change and expand around us. We see further, understand it better, and are astonished by its variety, by the limitations of the images we had of it. The description we manage to produce to account for it becomes increasingly rarefied, yet simple. We are akin to small blind moles underground who know little or nothing about the world. But we continue to learn. . .