Carlo Rovelli – 2014
Really remarkable. Short, clear, and accessible. Covers:
- Einstein’s special and general relativity – space as a gravitational field which bends and moves like a sea of gravitational waves
- Quantum mechanics and how all of chemistry comes from a single equation
- The journey from seeing the earth as the center of the universe to seeing the universe as a 15b year old system of gravitational waves
- The Standard Model of elementary particles as minuscule moving wavelets in a world of happenings, not of things
- The conflict between general relativity (curved space where everything is continuous) and quantum mechanics (flat space where quanta of energy leap) and how loop quantum gravity tries to reconcile them in a Big Bounce
- How the difference between past and future only exists where there is heat anh how hot black holes bring quantum mechanics, gravity from general relativity, and thermodynamics together and may reveal the true nature of time
- The difference between inventing stories and following traces to find something, how we cannot be external observers, and how we only have an approximate view of what is happening inside us
5/5
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