Reality Is Not What It Seems

The Journey to Quantum Gravity

Paperback, 255 pages

English language

Published June 1, 2017 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:
978-0-14-198321-9
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What are the elementary ingredients of the world? Do time and space exist? And what exactly is reality? In elegant and accessible prose,theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli leads us on a wondrous journey from Democritus to Einstein, from Michael Faraday to gravitational waves, and from classical physics to his own work in quantum gravity. As he shows us how the idea of reality has evolved over time, Rovelli offers readers deeper explanations of the theories he introduced so concisely in Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. Rovelli invites us to imagine a marvelous world where space breaks up into tiny grains, time disappears at the smallest scales, and black holes are waiting to explode -- a vast universe still largely undiscovered.

(From back cover)

4 editions

A history book for all of theoretical physics

Carlo Rovelli has explained all of physics like a story. He starts from the idea of the existence of atoms to quantum physics. He includes all the physicists that worked in their fields and what was their inspiration and goals. I think it's a really great book to understand science, as it explains the works of each generation of physicists, what was missing in their work and how that was fulfilled by the next generation.

Subjects

  • Science
  • Physics
  • Quantum Physics
  • Quantum Mechanics
  • History