Rovelli argues that time only seems to pass in an ordered fashion because we happen to be on Earth, which has a certain, unique entropic relationship to the rest of the universe. ‘We are held together as humans by memory, expectation and fear of the time that passes.’ Even what might seem like a thing-a stone, say-is really an event taking place at a rate we can’t register.

In the “elementary grammar of the world, there is neither space nor time-only processes that transform physical quantities from one to another, from which it is possible to calculate possibilities and relations,” the scientist writes. The stone is in a continual state of transformation, and on a long enough timeline, even it is fleeting, destined to take on some other form. Even what might seem like a thing-a stone, say-is really an event taking place at a rate we can’t register. Instead, the universe is made up of countless events. In fact, Rovelli explains, there are actually no things at all. At the quantum level, however, durations are so short that they can’t be divided and there is no such thing as time. “From our perspective, the perspective of creatures who make up a small part of the world-we see that world flowing in time,” the physicist writes. It’s a point of view that humans share as a result of our biology and evolution, our place on Earth, and the planet’s place in the universe. Time, Rovelli contends, is merely a perspective, rather than a universal truth. He makes a compelling argument that chronology and continuity are just a story we tell ourselves in order to make sense of our existence.īenedict Cumberbatch reads the opening of ‘The Order of Time’ by Carlo Rovelli, the new book about the meaning of time from the bestselling author of ‘ Seven Brief Lessons on Physics’. Rovelli’s new book, The Order of Time, published in April, is about our experience of time’s passage as humans, and the fact of its absence at minuscule and vast scales. This is I have spent my life studying time,” Rovelli explains. Wondering about time is wondering about the very sense of our life. Time opens up life and takes everything away. “Time is a fascinating topic because it touches our deepest emotions. But it’s good to take a step back every once in a while. We don’t have to understand the mechanics of the universe to go about our daily lives.

He’d “rather not ruin a party with physics,” he says. If you met him socially, Rovelli wouldn’t assault you with abstractions and math to prove this point. We are longing for a future that will not come.’

We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. “There is no time variable in the fundamental equations that describe the world,” theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli tells writer Ephrat Livni from Quartz. But it doesn’t even exist, according to quantum physics.

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