There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World

by Carlo Rovelli

In this collection of writings, the logbook of an intelligence always on the move, Carlo Rovelli follows his curiosity and invites us on a voyage through science, history, philosophy and politics.

Written with his usual clarity and wit, these pieces range widely across time and space: from Newton's alchemy to Einstein's mistakes, from Nabokov's butterflies to Dante's cosmology, from travels in Africa to the consciousness of an octopus, from mind-altering psychedelic substances to the meaning of atheism.

Charming, pithy and elegant, this book is the perfect gateway to the universe of one of the most influential scientists of our age.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Essays, Physics, History, Audiobook

Audible Audio

First published November 8, 2018

About the author

Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy and the USA, and currently works in France. His work is mainly in the field of quantum gravity, where he is among the founders of the loop quantum gravity theory. He has also worked in the history and philosophy of science. He collaborates regularly with several Italian newspapers, in particular the cultural supplements of Il Sole 24 Ore and La Repubblica.

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is, without doubt, Carlo Rovelli's best book. I have not been impressed by his previous popular science titles - too much purple prose and not enough depth. But in this collection of wide ranging short articles, he has found his metier, able to flit from interest to interest, often captivating with his enthusiasm for everything from Nabokov to Newton’s alchemy. And, unlike its predecessors, this book is a decent length.

Rovelli is clearly far more interested in philosophy than many physicists, rightly criticising those who make blanket denials of its value. A good number of the pieces touch on philosophy and its application to science, on subjects from quantum mechanics to consciousness. However, having as he does a scientific viewpoint, those who are put off by philosophy should still find the pieces interesting, if challenging to their prejudices. Some of the articles are solid science - for example a trio of articles on black holes. Others take us into perhaps surprising aspects of Rovelli's life, such as his youthful role as an activist. Throughout, though, most of the pieces are lively and well-written.

Admittedly, like many scientists, Rovelli's history of science can be a little inaccurate, claiming, for example that the Curies won the Nobel Prize ‘for the discovery of radioactivity’, when you only have to check the citation to see it was ‘in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel’. Or saying John Wheeler named black holes (something admittedly many of us thought until recently, but it is now widely known to be incorrect). Presumably it was a translation error that made Rovelli appear to consider carbon monoxide the primary human-sourced greenhouse gas. But on the whole the content is sound and engaging.

Some articles are a little dull, while a few are strangely naïve, such as polemic berating 'baby Jesus' for not doing things that Christianity has never said he would, or when he wonders if most English people took LSD in the 60s because the arty types he meets at a book event say they did (as Rovelli did also). However, most are interesting and thought provoking - and the great thing about this format is that even if you hit a piece you don't enjoy, a couple of pages later something totally different turns up.

Is this a science book? Enough, I would say, to interest anyone who enjoys popular science. It is a collection of columns with wide ranging topics (hence the bizarre title), but it appeals to exactly the same urge that makes good popular science so brilliant: it's interesting, it makes you think and it opens your mind to the wonders of the world. Excellent stuff.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer. I've enjoyed two of Rovelli's popular books about physics and was curious about 'There Are Places In The World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness.' The book demonstrates Rovelli's wide-ranging interests and breadth of knowledge and is interesting to read.


Carlo Rovelli

Rovelli fits the definition of a Renaissance Man in that he tries to embrace all knowledge and develop his own capacities as fully as possible. In this compendium of essays that were previously published in various newspapers, Rovelli writes about poets, scientists, and philosophers who have influenced him in some way. He also touches on his travels, black holes, religion, atheism, statistics, octopus nervous systems, inequality in society, Mein Kampf, free will, and much more.

Rovelli has studied the texts of historical figures like Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Dante, Plato, Isocrates, Newton, etc.....as well as modern scientists and mathematicians like Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, Karl Popper, Roger Penrose and more. Rovelli likes to 'connect the dots' between ancient and modern knowledge and to muse about diverse subjects that catch his interest.


Great Scientists

To provide a feel for the essays, I'll give some examples.

ღ Lolita and the Blue Icarus
Most people probably associate Vladimir Nabokov with his novels, especially 'Lolita.' But butterflies - such as the Blue Icarus - were Nabokov's passion. He collected butterflies as a child, published detailed descriptions of hundreds of species, and was the curator of the Lepidoptera section in the Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology. The writer was also fascinated by insect mimicry, and wrote, "When a certain moth resembles a certain wasp...it also walks and moves its antennae in a waspish manner" and "When a butterfly has to look like a leaf, not only are all the details of a leaf beautifully rendered but markings mimicking grub-bored holes are generously thrown in."


Vladimir Nabokov with his butterfly net


Blue Icarus Butterfly


This moth mimics a wasp to avoid predators


This butterfly mimics a leaf to avoid predators

ღ Dante, Einstein, and the Three-Sphere
In Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy, completed in 1321, he depicts the universe (in more lyrical terms) as two sets of concentric spheres, each of which encloses the other. Rovelli observes that Dante is describing a 'three-sphere', the shape of the universe Einstein hypothesized in 1917. The physicist observes, "Dante's unbridled poetic imagination and extraordinary intelligence anticipated by centuries a brilliant intuition of Einstein's."


Dante Alighieri

A three-sphere is a 4-dimensional mathematical construct that's hard to picture. However, Rovelli notes that in a three-sphere universe, a very fast spaceship always moving in the same direction would eventually end up back where it started from. So.....not an infinite universe.



ღ Why Does Inequality Exist?
Most societies have great disparities: billionaires and the poor; generals and privates; freemen and slaves; etc. How did this come to be?

Research suggests that members of nomadic hunter-gatherer groups, which consisted of 10 to 20 individuals, were socially equal. There were no leaders and no accumulation of wealth because booty from the hunt, which spoiled quickly, had to be distributed right away.


Hunter-Gatherers

But when farming began, and extended stationary clans developed, social distinctions emerged. "The conspicuous success of certain individuals began to be socially recognized....and men began to assign higher value to their own gender." 😣 In time, the clan came to be run by a minority that controlled its rites, and this was the origin of the aristocracy, of the clergy, and of large concentrations of wealth. Inequality in human society was born.


Early Farming Community

ღ Marie Curie
Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences (physics and chemistry) while struggling against adverse circumstances - because she was a woman in a world where it was often assumed women were inferior to men, and because she was a migrant from Poland to France.


Marie Curie

One of Curie's major practical achievements was the realization that X-rays could have medical applications. Marie constructed the first mobile radiography units, and used them on soldiers during WWI. It's estimated that a million servicemen were treated with the benefit of X-rays, saving thousands of lives.


Marie Curie's X-Ray Machine

ღ Black Holes I: The Fatal Attraction of Stars
At one time black holes were considered to be theoretical phenomena that didn't really exist. Then in 1972, a compact dark object in the Cygnus constellation, called Cygnus X-1, was seen to have another star rotating around it at great speed. Physicist John Wheeler wrote: "A black hole is like a man dressed in black who waltzes in a barely lit room with a woman dressed in white. We know that it is there only because we can see a bright star whirling around it."

Now it is estimated that in our galaxy alone there are tens of millions of black holes similar to Cygnus X-1.


Black Hole

ღ Black Holes II: The Heat of Nothingness
Stephen Hawking demonstrated that black holes are naturally hot. This surprised scientists, who once thought nothing could escape a black hole, So how could a black hole give off heat? The heat of black holes involves both the theory of general relativity and quantum theory. This is a scientific breakthrough because it's an indication of a way to combine these two great (seemingly unmergeable) physics theories. In quantum terms, Rovelli speculates that the heat of black holes may be the clue that reveals the existence of 'molecules of space' whose vibrations create heat.


Stephen Hawking determined that black holes emit heat

ღ Black Holes III: The Mystery of the Center
We don't know what happens when matter falls into the center of a black hole. The research group Rovelli works with in Marseille, together with other physicists, are exploring the idea that matter slows down and stops before it reaches the center of a black hole; it forms a kind of extremely small, dense star, a Planck star. Then the matter rebounds and forms a white hole....a region of space into which nothing can enter, but from which things emerge. Why don't we see the explosion immediately? Because time does not pass at the same speed everywhere; it's slowed down by gravity. So if you're INSIDE the black hole, the explosion occurs quickly. But if you're OUTSIDE the black hole, the explosion takes millions of years. (Pretty weird, right?)


Rovelli and other physicists speculate that matter at the center of a black hole might explode back out

ღ Churchill and Science
Winston Churchill was the first British prime minister to appoint a scientific advisor. He followed scientific advances with interest and wrote articles on popular science. Churchill even speculated about the possibility that life may exist elsewhere in the universe, observing: "With thousands of millions of nebulae, each one containing hundreds of millions of suns, the probability that there is an immense number containing planets where life is possible is high."

Churchill was also rather skeptical about humanity and wrote: "I am not so impressed by the successes of our civilization as to believe that in this immense universe....we may [not] be the highest level of mental or physical development that has been reached in this vast expanse of space and time." (I agree.)


Winston Churchill



There's much more in the book, and the essay format makes it especially good for dipping into between other life activities. Highly recommended.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot.com

[India M. Clamp · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the questioning we find out much. Finding a being thinking independently is like finding the wheat colored lint inside a pungent haystack. There are in fact complex beings on the planet processing sensory items in an uncommon way. Such life forms are sentient creatures with a permeating vision afforded to very few. They have an ability to see things (as they truly are). Just like what is essential, asleep or found shimmering in the glowing warm light of consciousness. Thanks to the anonymous physicists assisting me in comprehension.

"Significance of a university...it is also the place where dreams are nurtured: where we have the youthful courage to question that very knowledge, in order to go forward, in order to change the world."
---Carlo Rovelli

The study of science may be similar to musical precision found in the natural world. Items that do not adhere to such patterns are questionable. We then look to the math for a conclusion that has nothing to do with Euclid. Knowing physics reveals a pulsation so far removed from rhythms of a quasar. Something luminous is found in the fuzzy place. Those who sleep/dream in a warm blanket of theology, physics, quantum physics and metaphysics know "it" like Feynman, Einstein and Kaku.

[Iona Dobrescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We are not masters of the world, we are not immortal; we are, as we have always been, like leaves in the autumn wind.
What we are doing is struggling, together, to buy one another more days on Earth. For this short life, despite everything, seems beautiful to us, now more than ever."

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something so comforting about Rovelli's writing to me. I appreciate the fly-trap nature of his observations—everything is interesting to him, everything deserves attention, consideration, and digestion. I appreciate how open he is, as a scientist, to learning from the arts and philosophy. I believe in his humanism. I love learning from him because I trust him.

I read these bite-size essays over breakfast the past several weeks, in lieu of the news. It was an excellent decision. A dose of clarity and awe in place of the emotionally-charged optimism or pessimism of the day's headlines.

[Yeji · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed most of this book; at 90% I still wanted to give it four, maybe five stars. It’s beautifully written and conveys some fundamental ideas from physics (and their historical context) in a clear and engaging way. It’s poetic here and there and made me laugh a few times. But then came a couple of really uncomfortable closing chapters on free will, ‘Africa’, and the pandemic – plus, hobby horse Dante is mentioned just one time too many if you ask me. Alas.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delle piccole perle.
Adoro Rovelli, e questa raccolta merita di trovarsi nella biblioteca di ogni persona innamorata della scienza.
E non solo di quella

[عبدالرحمن عقاب · Rating 5 out of 5]

عرفتُ الفيزيائي "كارلو روفيلي" في كتابه "نظام الزمن". أعجبني هذا الفيزيائي الأديب وهو يكتب فيزياء تختلط بالشعر! كان يتحدث في موضوع فيزيائي معقّد بأسلوب أدبي جميل رائق. فعزمت على قراءة باقي أعماله.
ثمّ بعد جهد في السؤال والبحث وانتظار في المكتبات حصلت بحمد الله على كتابه هذا، وهو أحدث كتبه ترجمة إلى العربية.
والكتاب مجموعة من 46 مقالاً قصيراً. تجلّت فيها موهبة روفيلي الأدبية وثقافته الواسعة واهتمامه بالشأن الإنساني على اتساعه، إلى جانب تخصصه الدقيق في الفيزياء.
في المقالات تنوّع مدهش، وأسلوب بديع في مقاربة المواضيع العلمية، ومراجعات ممتعة لبعض الكتب، وتعريف ببعض الشخصيات العلمية المهمة.
القراءة لروفيلي ممتعة ومفيدة. وحصيلة الكتاب الفكرية تتجاوز صفحاته القليلة بما تثيره من أفكار. وزادت الترجمة المميزة لـ"صفية مختار" الكتاب غنىً وجمالاً، فشكراً لها.

[Bron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a lovely book, a collection of articles written for magazines and newspapers so each topic is 'bird sized' and easy to read. The author is a physicist grappling with understanding gravitational waves but don't panic, there's only one equation in this book. He has a gift for making even complicated ideas graspable. There's not much of his own work in this book, instead he covers lots of topics from the corona virus outbreak to an ancient Buddhist text that helps him with quantum physics! He does comment quite a lot on the interaction between science and other disciplines especially the arts and philosophy, and how we need all three. And all through the book there's a feeling that you are connecting with someone who has a joyful appreciation of life in all its aspects, from buying bread in a market in Senegal to contemplating the end of the universe

[RF Francis · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Deepity" of the highest order. A reading experience akin to enduring the holiday slides and associated reflections of a deeply boring pensioner who is endlessly fascinated by his own life and equally sure his reflections are unique and important. So anodyne as to not even be wrong. Non-sequiturs abound.

A man gazes into his own navel, mistakes the fluff for something else and then waves it in our faces smugly.

[Alyssa ♡ (unicornbl00d) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2☆ Found it quite drab. The essays on black holes were my favorite. The others were either lackluster, just summarizing someone else’s ideas and opinions, or both. They also don’t flow at all - not sure if that’s the fault of the translator or not.

[Francesco Enni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Innata empatia, capacità di commuovere, candida gentilezza, semplice stupore… contrassegni propri della prosa di Carlo Rovelli. Cullate dalla sua delicata penna, anche le più complesse teorie fisiche paiono lievi, ovattate, accessibili.

Collage di numerosi articoli giornalistici, il libro è più che mai una lettera aperta di esperienze. Rovelli vi incanala il torpore generatogli dalla “Vacuità” di Nagarjuna, la pietà nel cercare di dialogare con l’amico Hawking; vi mostra le sue scaramucce mentali con Aristotele, permette al lettore di albergare nel suo giardino interiore che, alla maniera di Epicuro, si palesa popolato da Zenone, Khun, Democrito, Penrose, Lemaitre, Leopardi, LSD…

È incredibile la sua capacità di far dialogare poesia e scienza, di mostrarne legami ed intercambiabilità. Per Rovelli il pensiero filosofico apre possibilità, libera da pregiudizi, svela incongruenze.

In queste pagine si legge la sua disperata malinconia verso vita, l'innato slancio allo studio dell’universo, il suo amore per la collaborazione e la comunione di idee.

Scrivendo Rovelli gioca con le parole, si diverte con periodi sospesi e conclusioni ad effetto, "una forma di magia che gioca con incanto e inganno"

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bunch of essays by Rovelli that center around art, fiction, poetry, physics, and the world. These collected essays reflect Rovelli's variety of interests and underlying personal philosophy. Life is about seeking after knowledge, treating others well, and using physics to be a better philosopher and using philosophy/poetry/etc to be a better physicist. Not all the essays were of equal value. Some were beautiful and some were interesting. The knot tying these essays together was a bit looser than I would have liked, but I still enjoyed it. Just not top-shelf Rovelli.

[Cheesecat777 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book overall. I definitely learned something new and a lot of the essays about philosophy and physics were interesting, but I wish that the title of the book overall was different in order to reflect better the contents in this book. One of the last essays has this line “there are places where rules are less important than kindness,” which is the title of the book, and I think the author gave the whole essay collection this name because it has a deep personal impact on him. I don’t think people who are familiar with his work would mind the title too much, but as someone who didn’t know anything about him before reading this book, the title was a bit misleading. I can also tell that this author has a lot of unique experiences and is an intelligent guy, but he does have opinions that I personally disagree with, but that’s just a small thing that doesn’t affect my rating that much. To summarize, smart guy, interesting essays, title could better fit the theme of the book, personally disagree with some of the author’s opinions.

[Zoë · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rovelli’s reflections are wise and always interesting. The breadth of the disciplines explored in the pages of this fairly slim book is incredible - Rovelli makes it possible to traverse hugely diverse regions of thought: probability and uncertainty, naturalism and poetry, black holes, LSD and the very fabric of reality.
Surprisingly, the common thread that runs through each essay is not physics (as I’d anticipated since Rovelli is a physicist) but rather a natural love of learning - a conviction that all knowledge is to be questioned, all knowledge is uncertain, and (knowing this) all knowledge is worth having.
The essays themselves are short, but each one led me to meditate a little more on the world that surrounds me: most did not offer a concrete or satisfying answer to the questions his essays give rise to, but instead gave me the tools and encouragement to reflect myself.

[Antonio Fanelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Articoli su vari argomenti, tutti molto stimolanti.
Da rileggere spesso e volentieri.

[Fey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I mean he’s a nice chap and all, I wish he was my uncle, but there is not much to gain from these feel-good essays.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Carlo Rovelli. I’ve read a number of his books now, and he’s both a great physicist, a clear writer, and seems like a really lovely human. I love his respect for philosophy, as a scientist. So many modern scientists dismiss philosophy as a field because they don’t understand that it’s the foundation of science, and that doing good, sound science inherently requires doing philosophy – following proofs to the end, interrogating every level of foundational assumptions to ensure a rigorous result.

Likewise, Rovelli respects and appreciates the sacred interplay of art and science: “Poetry and science are both manifestations of the spirit that creates new ways of thinking the world, in order to understand it better. Great science and great poetry are both visionary, and sometimes may arrive at the same insights. The culture of today that keeps science and poetry so far apart is essentially foolish, to my way of thinking, because it makes us less able to see the complexity and the beauty of the world as revealed by both . . . Can literature also tell us anything about the real and profound emotions connected with great science? Of course it can: Literature is full of science.”

Rovelli says, take Milton as an example: wondering about the then-hypothetical Copernican model of the solar system:
What if the Sun
Be Centre to the World, and other Stars
By his attractive virtue and their own
Incited, dance about him various rounds?

Or take amateur entemologist AND author Vladimir Nabokov – as Rovelli relates, Nabokov was the first person to understand the 10-million-year migration pattern of the Blue Icarus butterfly, of which he is known as the “godfather.” (Modern DNA science has confirmed his hypothesis, by the way). Interestingly, this came about because he was the descendent of a wealthy family of Russian aristocracy, and when he was eight his father was imprisoned for political reasons. The young Vladimir carried a butterfly to his cell. When his father was murdered and the family fortune lost in the revolution, he escaped to Europe, but the butterfly was always sacred to him.

A few interesting other bits Rovelli touches on in this book:

1) On what it means to be a good scientist: “The Einstein who makes more errors than anyone else is precisely the same Einstein who succeeds in understanding more about nature than anyone else, and these are complementary and necessary aspects of the same profound intelligence: the audacity of thought, the courage to take risks, the lack of faith in received ideas – including, crucially, one’s own. To have the courage to make mistakes, to change one’s ideas, not once but repeatedly, in order to discover. In order to arrive at understanding. Being right is not the important thing – trying to understand is.”

2) On exploring your mind: like Steve Jobs, Rovelli says his experience of hallucinogens is one of the most important things in his life: “I would say that the experience, for a number of hours, of a reality profoundly altered from our habitual perception of it left me with a calm awareness of the prejudices of our rigid mental categories, and of the flexibility and potential depth of the inner world that our brain is capable of experiencing.” He sagely notes that the reason many people are afraid of psychedelics is because they reveal your own mind, and most people are afraid of their own minds.

3) On modern politics: “A main source of the emotions that give power to the right, and above all to the far right, is not the feeling of being strong. It is, on the contrary, the fear of being weak. This fear is explicit in Mein Kampf, this feeling of inferiority, this sense of being surrounded by imminent danger. The reason behind the need to dominate others derives from a terror of being dominated by them.

4) On the human condition post-COVID: “We are not the masters of the world, we are not immortal; we are, as we have always been, like leaves in the autumn wind. We are not waging a battle against death. That battle we must inevitably lose, as death prevails anyway. What we are doing is struggling, together, to buy one another more days on earth. For this short life, despite everything, seems beautiful to us, now more than ever.”

[Issa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I believe I placed an unreasonable amount of hope in this book, especially after reading the rave reviews (a mistake, I admit). However, the first few chapters (or essays) are truly remarkable; in particular, I adore the chapter on Newton and alchemy. However, the latter ones are tedious and, on occasion, a little too offensive for me, particularly when he discusses religion. While everyone has the right to their own beliefs, just as it is unacceptable for religious people to call atheists stupid, it is also unacceptable for atheists to do the same. As he stated in the earlier chapters, we should be able to see beyond our differences, rather than keeping things separate. I honestly believed that this book would dispel the stigma that scientists are arrogant and judgmental, but not only did it confirm them, it also demonstrated that some can be hypocrites.
That said, all of the essays on science are incredible, and that is all I will re-read from this book.

[Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant yet random book. Not what you expect from the title. The author covers exciting themes, has an excellent outlook on life, and it was nice to find reference to Nagarjuna.

[Kat V · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the title is a bit misleading but this isn’t a bad book. Ok this is surprisingly interesting and good, considering I’m not sure exactly how all the essays in here fit together and some of them are pretentious. The one about Stephen Hawking was ableist. The last few were really good. 3.3 stars

[Rui Vieira · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t recall the last time such a small and condensed book taught me so much, about dozens of different things. Rovelli is a one of a kind intelligence, which he shares with us masterfully and even poetically.

[Bobby Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

READ THIS!!!!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

And so I close out this year of reading with book number 220. It's fitting that it's a three-star book, one that was mainly 'okay', with some bright points, but overall balancing out to 'kinda meh'. That's how I felt about most things I read this year, drawing the conclusion that increasing my reading output carries with it the inevitable outcome of increasing my consumption of books that are, well, 'kinda meh'. (To me, I should add.)

Rovelli takes for his subject in many of these essays famous scientists of the past. He isn't particularly critical in a literary sense, but it does leave me with a sort of exhausted awe of scientists who can understand the things all these guys understand. What am I doing with my life when there are people who taught themselves four languages before the age of fifteen, or invented one of the pieces in the production line that led to me sitting in a room writing words on a Mac directly to the internet? Nothing of note, is the answer.

Still, the essays themselves don't make for a coherent collection. When Rovelli ventures into the arenas of politics or philosophy his hot takes are lukewarm at best. Which is fine! The dude is a quantum physicist. He makes quantum physics (just about) digestible, but let's leave it to more convincing writers to sell us on LSD or atheism.

"Just as understanding where rain comes from or what causes lightning prompted faith in the existence of Zeus to evaporate, so too the understanding of how life evolved and diversified on Earth has vastly multiplied the number of atheists in the world."

Leaving aside the fact that 'replacement with Jupiter and then Jesus' is really what caused the death of Zeus, given how far his extinction predated the scientific discoveries mentioned, I contest the idea that you can draw a straight line from 'The Origin of Species' to 'most Westerners are atheists or at most Christmas Christians'. It's part of it, but not the whole of it. I personally think women's access to contraception, thus radically altering intra-familial power dynamics forever, had a lot more to do with it.

'Where did religion go' is a big question of mine, mainly because I love period dramas and it's excised completely from adaptations of Austen, Eliot, Bronte et al, not to mention their modern imitators, or at best weakly gestured at. It was such a big deal in such a big way to everyone for so long, and now it's just ... cultural window dressing. It's fascinating. But not as simplistic as Rovelli's making out.

"It is for this reason, I believe, that it seems inconceivable that things as complex as life, or our own thought, can emerge from simple things: because we instinctively underestimate simple things."

I'll give him that, though.

[Gary Moreau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rovelli is a Renaissance Man. And a theoretical physicist.

Adam Smith, who wrote “The Wealth of Nations”, is famous for his assertion that free markets will inevitably outperform regulated markets. In that same book, however, he also noted that monopolies would destroy everything and that the division of labor would ultimately lead to great inequities in wealth and income. And he was right on both counts. We want life to be simple, but it’s usually more complex than we accept.

This is a book of essays covering topics and people from Dante to Einstein and the Hadza, a population of African hunter-gatherers. The writing is breezy, yet thought-provoking. And the themes are simple. It’s all interrelated. We know very little. And can be certain of even less. And in a nod to Adam Smith, life cannot be boiled down to a simple slogan.

Modern science has experienced not just a division of labor but a division of study and knowledge. Everyone has a specific discipline and few see beyond its well-defined borders. This creates a propensity toward group think (a kind of intellectual monopoly) and severe scientific myopia that has allowed us to see a mile deep and an inch wide. Lots of facts, but little context.

Philosophy, I believe, which most scientists now shun, is the one discipline that seeks, sometimes unsuccessfully, to reach across the chasms dividing all discreet knowledge. It is refreshing, therefore, to see the amount of ink Rovelli devotes to philosophy and its lyrical counterpart, poetry.

The book includes 46 topics spread over a mere 250 pages or so, depending on the format. No topic is covered exhaustively. So while black holes, for example, are covered, if you are looking for an exhaustive study of black holes you will surely be disappointed.

I don’t know Rovelli, but I somehow think the brevity is intentional. (At one level that’s stating the obvious, but I am referring more to intent than style here.) When you step back from the swirling vortex of topics and ideas, there is a consistency to it all. It is the underlying constant of life. And while Rovelli does not give us the answer, and I daresay doesn’t really have it, he does help the reader to find tranquility in the uncertainty.

A very good read. The only thing missing, and perhaps it doesn’t exist, is a chapter explaining how he chose his subjects. Or perhaps, as he might say, he didn’t really choose them as we think of that process.

Intriguing stuff.

[Nathan Suttie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profoundly and beautifully human book. Rovelli proves that, just as there is truth to be found within beauty, there too is much beauty to be found within truth.
This book treads on the ostensibly artificial boundary between art and science with such ease as to make it unclear why these cultures are oft-separated in the first place. Each reflection provides an obvious example of the richness that exists in the symbiosis of the two.
It is apparent that a curiosity for life and the world around us is not something reserved to the domain of austere labcoats and sterile office-spaces, but instead a universal drive that has long-nurtured the soul of humanity; at-once empowering and humbling.
The surreal strangeness of reality and perennial perplexity of the human condition come together to form a grand enigma, in the presence of which the greatest science, art and philosophy of human history have taken shape.
Rovelli has a clarity of mind and breadth of vision that evades most scientists and artists alike. I feel I have found a new lodestar in his eclectic wisdom.

[Tova · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started off very skeptical of these essays since they’re mostly profiles of white male physicists through the ages and their ideas (+a token Marie Curie shoutout). That’s just a reductive way to look at the history of science, which seems so much more about questions of who had the cultural and economic resources to ask questions of the universe, and what modes of inquiry are respected and preservable. Moving past that though, I ended up loving most of these essays. Rovelli breaks down complex physics concepts clearly and kindly. Philosophical inquiries about the Big Questions of "what does it mean to be human?" almost always make me roll my eyes, but his tone of humility sidestepped that pretension completely. Like what DOES it mean? Let's get into it! I still don't really know anything about physics but I did take away a deeper appreciation for "the flexibility and depth of inner world our brains are capable of experiencing." Yippee!

[Jahnavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book this was. im so dazzled

Physics and poetry and philosophy and anthropology and psychology and literature and humankind and free will and naturalism and consciousness and uncertainty and stars and all beautiful things, but also emptiness? This book is brilliant in a knowledgable and curious way that makes you realize nothing matters, and that's why it matters so much. Carlo Rovelli is my new favorite person.

[Avolyn Fisher · Rating 2 out of 5]

These essays/stories did not flow all that well, and I found myself constantly asking, what's the point? I also felt that each one was hastily concluded, reminding me of the papers I wrote in high school when I didn't know how to end things.

It's surprising since I've enjoyed other Rovelli works. This one was a bit of a dud.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarely have I connected so effortlessly with a writer; who takes themes, ideas and theories and applies such charm and humanity that you find yourself skipping back pages to re-evaluate a page having found a little piece of enlightenment.

Can not recommend highly enough.