Name: Matthew Jackson's review of The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
Item: The Order of Time
Rating: 5
Author: Matthew Jackson

Carlo Rovelli

Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe. With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, art and philosophy, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery, inviting us to imagine a world where time is in us and we are not in time.

The Order of Time

One of TIME’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade "Meet the new Stephen Hawking . . . The Order of Time is a dazzling book." --The Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, comes a concise, elegant exploration of time. Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe. Already a bestseller in Italy, and written with the poetic vitality that made Seven Brief Lessons on Physics so appealing, The Order of Time offers a profoundly intelligent, culturally rich, novel appreciation of the mysteries of time.

i have no words... thank you for making tear up in tj s21

madina

So, thank you, John; thanks, Bryce. As human beings, we live by emotions and thoughts. We exchange them when we are in the same place at the same time, talking to each other, looking into each other's eyes, brushing against each other's skin. We are nourished by this network of encounters and exchanges. But, in reality, we do not need to be in the same place and time to have such exchanges. Thoughts and emotions that create bonds of attachment between us have no difficulty in crossing seas and decades, sometimes even centuries, tied to thin sheets of paper or dancing between the microchips of a computer. We are part of a network that goes far beyond the few days of our lives and the few square meters that we tread.

—here and now. This is time for us. Memory and nostalgia. The pain of absence.

THE PRESSURE OF A HAND ON A SHOULDER....... the "real" (which requires this semantic breakdown of what is "real") things of the world. woooooow.

To describe the world, the time variable is not required. What is required are variables that actually describe it: quantities that we can perceive, observe, and eventually measure. [...] the color of the sky, the number of stars in the celestial vault, the elasticity of a piece of bamboo, the speed of a train, the pressure of a hand on a shoulder, the pain of a loss, the position of the hands on a clock, the height of the sun in the sky... These are the terms in which we describe the world.

Perhaps poetry is another of science's deepest roots: the capacity to see beyond the visible.

One of TIME’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade "Meet the new Stephen Hawking . . . The Order of Time is a dazzling book." --The Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Reality Is Not What It Seems, and Helgoland, comes a concise, elegant exploration of time. Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe. Already a bestseller in Italy, and written with the poetic vitality that made Seven Brief Lessons on Physics so appealing, The Order of Time offers a profoundly intelligent, culturally rich, novel appreciation of the mysteries of time.

WHAT!!! now i understand why oomf said their friend said this was their favorite book. i've also been thinking of mental time-travel a lot, especially in relation with aphantasia. this is going to be so interesting...

What ties time to our nature as persons, to our subjectivity?

What am I listening to when I listen to the passing of time?

One of TIME's Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Decade "Meet the new Stephen Hawking . . . The Order of Time is a dazzling book." --The Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, comes a concise, elegant exploration of time. Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe. Already a bestseller in Italy, and written with the poetic vitality that made Seven Brief Lessons on Physics so appealing, The Order of Time offers a profoundly intelligent, culturally rich, novel appreciation of the mysteries of time.

Laura Mei

Every moment of our existence is linked by a peculiar triple thread to our past—the most recent and the most distant—by memory. Our present swarms with traces of our past. We are histories of ourselves, narratives. I am not this momentary mass of flesh reclined on the sofa typing the letter a on my laptop; I am my thoughts full of the traces of the phrases that I am writing; I am my mother’s caresses, and the serene kindness with which my father calmly guided me; I am my adolescent travels; I am what my reading has deposited in layers in my mind; I am my loves, my moments of despair, my friendships, what I’ve written, what I’ve heard; the faces engraved on my memory. I am this long, ongoing novel. My life consists of it.

Past and future are different from each other. Cause precedes effect. Pain comes after a wound, not before it. The glass shatters into a thousand pieces, and the pieces do not re-form into a glass. We cannot change the past; we can have regrets, remorse, memories. The future instead is uncertainty, desire, anxiety, open space, destiny, perhaps. We can live toward it, shape it, because it does not yet exist. Everything is still possible. Time is not a line with two equal directions: it is an arrow with different extremities.

Because everything that begins must end. What causes us to suffer is not in the past or the future: it is here, now, in our memory, in our expectations. We long for timelessness, we endure the passing of time: we suffer time. Time is suffering.

Kenan

The “present of the universe” is meaningless.

'A dazzling book ... the new Stephen Hawking' Sunday Times The bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics takes us on an enchanting, consoling journey to discover the meaning of time 'We are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come.' Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe. With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, philosophy and art, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery. Enlightening and consoling, The Order of Time shows that to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time -- and to understand time we need to reflect on ourselves. Translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre

Najara Valente

This is time for us. Memory. A nostalgia. The pain of absence. But it isn't absence that causes sorrow. It is affection and love. Without affection, without love, such absences would cause us no pain. For this reason, even the pain caused by absence is in the end something good and even beautiful. Because it feeds on that which gives meaning to life.

Matthew Jackson

Coleman McCormick

A succinct and powerful rumination on the nature of time, gravitation, and quantum theory. Because it's not overly technical, more philosophical, it was great in audio form.

i've read several science nonfiction books that talk about time, but none of them has cemented understanding about it in my brain the way this book has. i can confidently say i understand the existence & non-existence of time & what is meant by "time is relative" because of this book. i said to ilzan & nishrin that if you want to read a better version of contact light, read this book instead - & i feel even more strongly about that after finishing ch. 8 & ch. 12.

i feel like i need an extended resensi for this - an actual post, piece of writing after this book, rather than just a review on a social platform for reading. but for now -

thank you for making me tear up at the transjakarta route S21 (multiple times!), thank you for brushing past me in this flicker of a life. thank you for letting your words weave through me.

i've read several science nonfiction books that talk about time, but none of them has cemented understanding about it in my brain the way this book has. i can confidently say i understand the existence & non-existence of time & what is meant by "time is relative" because of this book. i said to ilzan & nishrin that if you want to read a better version of contact light, read this book instead - & i feel even more strongly about that after finishing ch. 8 & ch. 12.

i feel like i need an extended resensi for this - an actual post, piece of writing after this book, rather than just a review on a social platform for reading. but for now -

thank you for making me tear up at the transjakarta route S21 (multiple times!), thank you for brushing past me in this flicker of a life. thank you for letting your words weave through me.

Short, sweet, and intelligent; some sections have lost me for a bit but eventually made sense. It's a pleasure to read and definitely a candidate for a second reading.

Olga V

Tuago

Beautifully written short book on what is time and what do we know about it so far. Some parts are mind blowing because they teach you so much and some others because they are so hard to understand. Will have to re-read at some point.

Explains some concepts about time and how relativistic view works in a way that reader feels the author is writing a poem. Such a lovely way to explain stuff. 

An enjoyable read, the book was a good introduction that helped me contemplate a fascinating topic but lacked depth. I felt several key concepts were simply touched on  instead of explored. I had anticipated these topics would be discussed further in the next chapter… but they weren’t. Will read more Rovelli books.

Catherine Flanagan

More philosophy than physics. I much, much preferred Rovelli’s ‘Reality Is Not What It Seems’.

Johnny Noble

very nice and philosophic, definitely for another read

Kristof Revilak

Daniel Lauzon

A perfect little book. Deep yet accessible. It discusses the fundamental nature of time, and feels like a book of philosophy or poetry.

Nelson Zagalo

Rovelli é fascinante, como Sagan e Hawking foram. Há muito tempo que não me sentia tão curioso durante a leitura de um livro de simples divulgação científica, porque Rovelli usa linguagem e metáforas acessíveis e porque o assunto é o Tempo, algo a que todos estamos presos, queiramos ou não. Descobrir aquilo que Rovelli tem para nos contar é um pouco como descobrir algo sobre nós mesmos, porque este livro não é sobre o Tempo, este livro é sobre aquilo de que nós e o cosmos somos feitos. Rovelli perfura pela matéria e tempo adentro abrindo-nos ao espanto da descoberta. Admirável.

Continuar a ler no VI, em:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

jordan

Found myself googling terms and chapter summaries more often than I have to when I attempt to read poetry

Made me think a lot (which I love) and forced me to use the rewind button many times. I love Benedict cumberbatch’s voice, but if my thoughts drifted for even 30 seconds I felt like I was lost

Mohamed Nagi

الكتاب ممتع ومختلف بيشرح فكرة الزمن بشكل مبسط لا يخلوا طبعا من المفاهيم العلمية و المصطلحات الفيزيائية ولكن بالاجمال يمكن فهمها وفهم الفكرة والنظريات التي يطرحها الكاتب بخصوص الزمن

Alfredo santos

Gave me such joy to finally understand in more detail what "time" is from a scientific perspective, it's particles, relation to gravitational forces and entropy. 

This book is by no means for scientists, but for people who want to understand the fabric of time on simpler terms, but based on science. 

The author goes to great lengths to fully explain for the right audience and touches different subjects about the human perception of time vs the scientific composition of time. 

It's also a bit short and with great references in case you want to further research. 

Kept me thinking for days about how we perceive it vs how it truly is and behaves. 

Definitely one of my favorite non fiction reads of the last years.

Mundy Otto Reimer

Started out at 3-4 stars and ended up somewhere around 2.5. Some process philosophy, loop quantum gravity, and the philosophy + physics of time. Had some nice philosophical parts coming from a physicist, but strayed too much into the poetic and pop-sci for my personal tastes. The author and I also agreed too much which made it not really interesting to me.

Harsha G

One of the most important books of all time.
Get it?

This has some complex ideas that are presented in a rather confusing way, which nevertheless make up for a compelling picture of disparate thoughts and emotions that affects you in the same messy way that a Cubist painting would.

Teresa Su

Hannah Tierney

This book has a wonderful poetic narration but it lost me a few times when it was discussing intricate scientific concepts. Perhaps it was because I listened as an audiobook rather than reading.

Cindy Lieberman

What is time but our way of ordering the world as we can perceive it? As humans we have evolved to be able to predict certain things, like where an arrow will be in the next moment. Thus we have created the framework we use for before and after, for the passing of time. There’s a lot more in here to contemplate, to digest…in time!

Ben Bleikamp

Sets the bar for a clear, concise explanation of a complex, impossible topic

Fatin Allen

The Order of Time was a really interesting piece. Refreshingly, the author Carlo Rovelli, a theoretical physicist currently stationed in Marseille, tackled the question of time from a philosophical and poetical point of view with bits of physics. In the book, he asked stoic questions such as what does ‘now’ really mean and, how do we differentiate the past, the present and the future. He equally shared the argument between Aristotle and Newton which later synthesized by Einstein. I also liked how this book gave me a clearer insight of entropy and its characteristics, what I learnt in class. Upon completing this book, I realized that philosophy pushes sciences or rather physics to become what it is today and it still pushes, still ticks the minds of some of our greatest scientists. I’ve shared before, what modern science pre-Galileo is because let’s admit, Galileo is the father of modern science thanks to his scientific methods.

Anyway, The Order of Time is a perfect book for those who are intrigued by time (like me) and for those who just need a fresh perspective of this world.

B. K.

4 stars. I liked the first part of this book the most, got a bit lost in the middle, and appreciated the touches of philosophy mixed into the science throughout. Reading this via audiobook was the right choice for me, and I enjoyed Benedict Cumberbatch's narration.

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER The bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics takes us on an enchanting, consoling journey to discover the meaning of time 'We are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come' Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe. With his extraordinary charm and sense of wonder, bringing together science, philosophy and art, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery. Enlightening and consoling, The Order of Time shows that to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time -- and to understand time we need to reflect on ourselves. Translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre

Jawahir M

Description Summary: A thought provoking book with fascinating concepts but which has a dizzying way of laying them out. Think The Theory of Everything except with more physics :).

Score: 3/5

The Order of Time is one of those books that sounds incredibly fascinating and when you pick up the book, you feel as if this is going to be the next literary revelation in our lifetime. Unfortunately due to my complete lack of background in physics, I had a really hard time understanding much. So what was supposed to look like clear chronological lines of reason turned into a clump of tangled wires.

The poor fellow though really tried to simplify things bless him; Rovelli even explicitly says  "...in the hope that I have not already lost all of my readers."  

Even he can admit the book is somewhat dizzying! However we must take note that time is a confusing and mysterious part of life, one that is beautifully strange yet alluring all the same. I did learn astonishing things in respect to time and the universe, it's one of those books that will make you sit on a bench on the park and just wonder at awe on how the universe is around you; like walking out of the cinema theatre after being sucked in another "world".

Despite the challenging difficulty in grasping the book, I liked the author's writing and the use of real life examples to illustrate the various notions of time. Furthermore, his use of graphics, pictures, and the multiple references that you can look at really provides a profound picture of time and the ideas that he's presenting.

Book Summary: Carlo Rovelli, quantum physicist, asks the question: "What is time exactly?". This spirals into a full fledged journey of science, philosophy, and art to look into the one element that simultaneously makes its presence known and unknown in our lives. The book is divided into 3 main parts.

Part 1 looks at a world with time. From there Rovelli goes against our main beliefs onto what we think we know and believe about time, and starts deconstructing these "facts" so that you can relearn time according to Rovelli's claims and research.

Part 2 looks at a world without time. After the deconstruction that has happened in part 1, Rovelli is able now to illustrate a timeless world on the blank canvas of our minds. Time gets more chaotic here, but that doesn't mean that the world makes any less sense.

Part 3 looks back at the sources of time. We've tasted the dish, seen how it's been put together, now Rovelli showcases us the ingredients that made it up. This is one of the most philosophical parts of the book, and where Rovelli looks at the more humane parts of time. Rovelli writes about death, our memories, our experiences, and all that makes us fragile and human. End of Summary.

I might probably reread this with my physics obsessed friend because I really want this to be an unforgettable book for me, and not one I struggled to go through only for it to slip through my memory like trails of water. 

I'll end the review with one of my favorite quotes from the book:

"And it seems to me that life, this brief life, is nothing other than this: the incessant cry of these emotions that drive us...Sometimes it is a cry of pain. Sometimes it is a song...And it is fine like this. We can close our eyes, rest. This all seems fair and beautiful to me. This is time."

Do I recommend? I would suggest having a slight understanding of psychics before reading this.

Ben Nathan

Fascinating and interesting, just not something I would call "riveting". I'm very glad I read it, but don't know if I could suggest it to most anyone (unless they really love the physics of time).

Matthew Jackson &
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

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