The Order of Time

by Carlo Rovelli

The fields manifest themselves in granular form: elementary particles, photons and quanta of gravity – or rather ‘quanta of space’. These elementary grains do not exist immersed in space; rather, they themselves form that space. The spatiality of the world consists of the web of their interactions. They do not dwell in time: they interact incessantly with each other, and indeed exist only in terms of these incessant interactions. And this interaction is the happening of the world: it is the minimum elementary form of time that is neither directional nor linear. Nor does it have the curved and smooth geometry studied by Einstein. It is a reciprocal interaction in which quanta manifest themselves in the interaction, in relation to that with which they interact.