Reality is not what it seems || Carlo Rovelli || Review

Reading Time: 2min 30sec

“Reality is not what it seems” is one of the best works of Mr. Carlo Rovelli. The author of “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics” has put a special influence on his readers. This is his one of the best historical books on science. Mr. Carlo Rovelli has discussed well how the concept of the atom came, how the structure has been developed day by day. How calculation met with concepts. And there you will find how philosophers took a special part in this category. How they gave theory without proof. But somehow many went wrong, many weren’t. Such as the proof of the ‘atomic hypothesis’ which was given by Democritus and examined by Albert Einstein. Here our author has told the significance of mathematics. While discussing this he mentioned: “Anyone could have arrived at it, from the time of Democritus onwards, if he had Einstein’s acumen and a sufficient mastery of mathematics to make what was not an easy calculation.” But what was the idea that Einstein followed? Well, we would read the book for that.

CONTENTS

Specially, this book has four main parts as contents: Roots, The Beginning of the Revolution, Quantum Space and Relational Time & Beyond Space and Time. It will be better if I mention these in more detail.

Part One- Roots: It has two subheadings- ‘Grains’ and ‘The Classic’. Here, the author has talked over the philosophers’ efforts in the first section. And, the next section is to show how scientists looked forward and discovered theories along with proofs. As well as we shall see how the poet like Shakespeare drew the appearance of atom in his writings.

Part Two- The Beginning of the Revolution: Here, we will only know about Albert and Quanta. Carlo Rovelli has discussed, how Albert constructed the pillar of modern physics & the difference of Space-time theory, before and after Einstein, using the concept of relativity. The author has beautifully drawn the evolution of Space, Time and Particles with the help of Sir Newton, Faraday Maxwell and Einstein, and how it came. One of the most beautiful things I observed here: Traditional representation of Dante’s universe.

Part Three- Quantum Space and Relational Time: Here readers will get introduced with how to illustrate any event with respect to General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. He has explained enough about these two shades of Physics. Also, we’ll know the closed solution of the WheelerDeWitt equation, by Smolin and Jacobson. We shall meet with another theoretical physicist of the Soviet Union, Matvei Bronstein, and Lev Landu. Our author has delivered a clear and deep analysis of the WheelerDeWitt equation. The quantum version of Faraday’s line of force― this is one of the best sides in this part. Likewise, I have got an authentic idea about ‘Spectra of volume and area’ & ‘Spin Network’. Then you will be brought to the most remarkable topic: ‘Time doesn’t exist’.

Part Four- Beyond Space and Time: This is the last part of this book. Most people of this century are mostly interested in such topics. ‘Beyond the Big Bang’- this is one of them which has been flowing from many years ago. A year goes, century goes, but such a topic may extend till the last moment of the universe. But what is that? What will be the last moment of this universe? What does it mean ‘The End of Infinity’, ‘Thermal Time’? We shall see what happens at the Centre of black holes, how Feynman and his colleagues completed the Quantum Field Theory, started by Dirac.

Personal Review: 4.5/5