Reality Is Not What It Seems

I enjoyed this book because I’ve had many questions over the past decade or so about quantum physics and the (eventual) redefinition of gravity and spacetime.

Rovelli’s book helped me see connections between articles I’ve read and only partially understood. Those connections helped me communicate more clearly with people attending a science outreach event—'more clear communications' is better for everyone.

I’m a biochemist, not a physicist. But as a science fiction writer, I yearned to grasp the strange language of theoretical physics. In his opening chapters, Carlo Rovelli deftly navigates the intersection of poetry, philosophy, physics, and mathematics to present the most accessible picture I’ve encountered of currently accepted theory, starting with the atom and working through Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, and Einstein to end with quantum physics. Things get more speculative as he then delves into his own field, loop quantum gravity, portraying a universe that is finite not only at the cosmic level of Einstein’s curved spacetime but also… show more.